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SYMPOSIUM 



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Scriptural Holiness 




EDITED BY, 

REV. WILSON T. HOGG, 

President of Greenville College, and 
Editor of "The Free Methodist." 



•Be Ye Holy." 



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chicago, ill. 
Free Methodist Publtshtxg House 

189(5. 



COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
BY THE FREE METHODIST PUBLISHING HOI 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Holiness not Understood, by Rev. Benja- 
min T. Roberts, A. M 7 

Holiness the Main Theme of the Bible, 

by Bev. Edward Payson Hart 13 

The Nature of Scriptural Holiness, by 

Rev. George W. Coleman 17 

Legal and Evangelical Holiness Con- 
trasted, by Rev. Levi Wood 23 

Holiness Attainable, by Rev. Walter A. 

Sellew, A. M 30 

Holiness a Privilege, by Rev. Charles B. 

Ebey 36 

Holiness a Necessity, by Rev. Burton R. 

Jones 41 

Holiness as Related to Justification 
and Sanctification, by Rev. Charles 
M. Damon 49 

Conviction for Holiness, by Rev. A. J. 

McKinney 53 

Consecration and Holiness, by Rev. M. N. 

Downing 59 

Relation of Faith to Holiness, by Rev. 

Wilson T. Hogg 63 

Fruits of Holiness, by Rev. W. B. Olmstead 70 

Professing Holiness, by Rev. Benson How- 
ard Roberts, A. M 74 

Retaining Holiness, by Mrs. Emma Sellew 

Roberts, A. M 79 

Holiness as a State of Christian Per- 
fection, by Rev. D. C. Johnson 84 

Perfecting Aoliness, by the editor 90 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Holiness and the Ministry, by Rev. Wil- 
son T. Hogg, Editor of the Free Methodist 94 
Holiness and the Church, by Rev. F. D. 

Brooke 99 

Preaching Holiness, by Rev. J. La Due. . . 105 
Meetings for Holiness, by Mrs. M.H. Free- 
land 110 

Holiness and Reforms, by Rev. Charles II. 

Rawson, A. M 113 

Practical Holiness, by Mrs. Mary C. Baker. 122 

Spurious Holiness, by Rev. J. T. Logan 128 

Advice to Those Professing Holiness, by 

Albert H. Stilwell, A. M 139 

Holiness at Death, by Rev. S. K. AYheatlake 144 

Out and Into, author unknown 147 

The Master's Touch, selected by Julia F. 

Holmes 149 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

If any apology is needed for sending out this little 
volume we have one and only one to offer, namely, 
an earnest desire to add, so far as possible, to the 
agencies already at work for spreading Scriptural 
holiness over the land. 

The articles herein contained, with two exceptions, 
were originally prepared for a special Holiness issue 
of the Free Methodist which appeared March 4, 1896. 
When received they were considered too good to be 
allowed to disappear with the weekly issue of the 
paper which contained them, and so it was decided 
between the editor and publisher to electrotype the 
matter and put it into a more permanent form than 
that of a mere newspaper publication. Whether this 
was wise or otherwise the patronage the work 
receives will help us to determine. 

If there shall be found some repetition in the work, 
let it be remembered that each writer wrote without 
knowing what other topics were to be discussed, in 
which case it was scarcely possible for all repetition 
to be avoided. We have been surprised, however, 
that the repetitions are so few, and we are more than 
pleased that there are no conflicting views expressed 
by the twenty-one different writers who have con- 
tributed this series of papers on Scriptural holiness. 

The first paper in the series is from the able pen 
of the late Rev. B. T. Roberts, and is reprinted from 
the Earnest Christian, by permission, as a most 
suitable leader to the series which follows it. The 



6 PREFACE. 

paper on "Perfecting Holiness" is part of a sermon 
preached at the International Holiness Convention 
held in Chicago several years ago, and which was 
published in the report of that convention. The 
other articles have been specially prepared for the 
Symposium, and so have the quality of freshness, at 
least. 

We now send forth this little volume in the divine 
Master's name and with the hope and prayer that his 
blessing may so attend it as to make it in some 
measure effective in hastening the day when 
"Holiness unto the Lord shall be written upon 
the bells of the horses", and when "the earth shall 
be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea." 




RKV. BENJAMIN TITUS ROBERTS. 



Symposium on Holiness. 






HOLINESS NOT UNDERSTOOD. 

The Bible has much to say about holiness. It is an 
attribute of God (Psa. 60:6; Rev. 4:8, et al). We are 
commanded to follow it (Heb. 12:14); to worship God 
in the beauty of holiness (Psa. 29:2). Without it we 
cannot see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). It is the one thing 
needful. There are many things which are conven- 
ient and useful; but this alone is indispensable to our 
welfare both in this world and in the world to come. 
It is important, then, that we have correct ideas of its 
nature. If we would hit a mark we must know where 
to aim. If we would attain an excellence we must 
know what it is. He who would search for diamonds, 
must know diamonds when he finds them. 

Upon first view, it may seem that men are pretty 
well agreed as to what constitutes holiness; but, on 
reflection, this will be seen to be a mistake. Upon 
this point there is a wide diversity of opinion. Such 
is the imperfection of language and such the consti- 
tution of particular minds that the same words often 
fail to express the same idea to different persons, even 
when they are equally candid. But take holiness in 
its most tangible form— take it as exemplified in the 
lives of holy persons — and it is not generally acknowl- 
edged to be holiness. It is usually called by almost 



8 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

any other name than holiness. In God's sight, Job 
was a holy person. He said, "Hast thou considered 
my servant Job, that there is none like him in the 
earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth 
God and escheweth evil" (Job 1:8)? But even his 
friends labored to convince him that he was a wicked 
man. Eliphaz says to him, "They that plough iniq- 
uity and sow wickedness, reap the same" (Job 4:8). 
Bildad takes up the accusation and reminds him that 
"The hypocrite's hope shall perish'' (Job 8:13). Zo- 
phar asks him, "Should thy lies make men hold their 
peace" (Job 11:3)? And even Elihu exclaims, "What 
man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water ? 
Which goeth in company with the workers of iniq- 
uity, and walketh with wicked men" (Job 34:7,8)? 
This was the opinion which his friends had of him, as 
expressed to his face. Of course the judgment of his 
enemies was much more unfavorable. 

Our Saviour exemplified holiness in its must perfect 
form. In his life, his conversation, his spirit, and in 
all his actions he was holiness personified. Jle gave 
the most unmistakable proofs of disinterested love to 
all mankind. Yet the popular verdict concerning him 
was, "Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine bibber, a 
friend of publicans and sinners" (Matt. 11: 19). 

Christ told his disciples that they must not expect 
to be appreciated any better than he was. "If they 
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how 
much more shall they call them of his household" 



HOLINESS NOT UNDERSTOOD. 9 

(Matt. 10:25)? From that day down to the present, 
holiness in the disciples of Christ has been recognized 
by but few, even of those who call themselves Chris- 
tians. John Wesley stated clearly, defended ably, and 
exemplified in his life the doctrine of holiness. 
Whitefield for burning zeal, and simple devotion to 
the cause of Christ, has not had a superior since the 
days of St. Paul. Yet the Eev. Sydney Smith, a cler- 
gyman of the same church as that to which Wesley 
and Whitefield belonged, a writer of great celebrity, 
but expressed the estimate in which they were held 
by their fellow clergymen, w r hen he said: "They were 
men of considerable talent; they observed the common 
decorums of life; they did not run naked into the 
streets or pretend to be prophetical characters;— and 
therefore they were not committed to Newgate. They 
preached with great energy to weak people, who first 
stared, then listened— then believed— then felt the in- 
ward feeling of grace, and became as foolish as their 
teachers could possibly wish them to be; in short folly 
ran its ancient course;— and human nature evinced 
itself to be what it always has been, under similar 
circumstances. The great and permanent cause, 
therefore, of Methodism, is the cause winch has given 
birth to fanaticism in all ages— the facility of min- 
gling human errors with the fundamental truths of 
religion." 

In our day we see that which we deem essential to 
holiness purposely omitted in instructions upon this 



10 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

subject. Popular sins, are, to say the least, silently 
tolerated. During the war of the rebellion, in a pop- 
ular meeting for the promotion of holiness, in the city 
of New York, Brother D. F. Newton thanked the 
Lord for President Lincoln's Emancipation Procla- 
mation. He was at once called to order for introdu- 
cing a topic calculated to disturb the harmony of the 
meeting. There are many works on the subject of 
holiness, written in the days of slave-holding to circu- 
late among slave-holders, and not a word to be found 
in them condemning the practice. The same spirit 
which led to silence respecting slave-holding in the 
days when all the popular churches welcomed the 
slave-holders to their communion, to-day utterly 
ignores the existence of sins which God's word plainly 
condemns, but which the leading churches openly tol- 
erate. That which encourages what God forbids is 
not holiness. The name of a thing does not give it 
its nature. 

There is a powerful secret society, spreading itself 
throughout the country, composed largely of unbe- 
lievers, to which, however, many ministers and church 
members belong. This society is thoroughly anti- 
Christian in its character. To pray in the lodge in 
the name of Christ is declared by the highest Masonic 
authority to be a violation of the fundamental princi- 
ples of Masonry. The members bind themselves by 
the most horrid oaths to submit to be murdered, and 
to conceal, and even commit murder under certain 



HOLINESS NOT UNDEKSTOOD. 11 

circumstances. Of these facts any intelligent person 
can easily satisfy himself beyond the shadow of a 
doubt. Yet in many meetings held for the promotion 
of holiness, to point out these hindrances to the work 
of holiness would be considered impertinent and fa- 
natical. 

Again, the persecution to which the saints of God 
have always been subjected, shows that holiness is not 
recognized when seen. The word declares, "Yea, and 
all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer per- 
secution" (2 Tim. 3:12). This persecution varies in 
its form with the prevailing spirit of the age. But 
whatever shape it assumes, persecution never assigns 
as its reason, the godliness of its victims. Their ob- 
stinacy, or contumacy, or disloyalty, or heresy is as- 
signed as the cause of their sufferings. Christ was 
put to death as an impostor. Luther was excommu- 
nicated as a heretic, and Wesley and Whitefield were 
hunted as fanatics. Their persecutors were the pro- 
fessed children of God, and they believed it to be a 
zeal for holiness which instigated their opposition to 
those who furnished bright examples of holiness in 
their lives. 

On the other hand, there are those who make holi- 
ness comprise attributes which are entirely beyond 
the reach of a human being in our present condition. 
They give a meaning to the term which the scriptures 
do not warrant. According to their standard, a holy 
person cannot make a mistake in judgment, either 



12 A SYMPOSIUM OX HOLINESS. 

through ignorance or misapprehension. He must not 
only do right, as he understands it, but do right as 
they understand it, under all circumstances. They 
measure others by their own infallibility. They make 
no allowances for lack of judgment or for imperfect 
training. He who professes holiness, must be, accord- 
ing to their views, beyond the reach of unfriendly 
criticism. In addition to all this, he must never fall. 
Shouid he ever afterward manifest any disposition 
contrary to his profession, it is then assumed that all 
along he was either deceived or hypocritical. If he 
lost holiness, the conclusion is not only that he never 
had holiness, but that no one ever did or ever will. In 
short, holiness is pronounced unattainable because 
some who appeared once to have attained it did not 
persevere to the end. 

Thus a false standard of holiness is raised, and then 
holiness is declared to be an impossibility, because no 
one is found to come up to this Imaginary standard. 
We are told to aim our arrow at the sun, and then are 
ridiculed because we fall short of the mark. The 
moral perfections of God are presented as our stand 
ard, and then we are gravely told that we cannot 
attain it. 
REV. BENJAMIN TITUS ROBERTS, A. J/., 
Founder and first Superintendent of the Free 
Methodist Church. 




REV. EDWARD PAYSON HART. 



HOLINESS THE MAIN THEME OF THE 
BIBLE . 

"All roads lead to Rome." As certainly as Rome 
was the great center and head of the empire of the 
Caesars, so is "Holiness the main theme of the Bible." 
Take up whatever phase of Bible teaching we may, 
whether historical, geographical, typical or experi- 
mental, all lead to and end at the one point of moral 
purity. "In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth" is but the history of the formation of 
a planet to be peopled by a new order of intelligences 
patterned after the moral image of Deity. All 
through the first chapter of Genesis we read that God 
[Elohim] "created," "called," "said" and "set". But 
in the second chapter, just preceding the account of 
man's shameful sin and fall,— as if overshadowing 
mercy were already preparing a hiding-place from 
wrath — another person of the Godhead appears and 
we read, "The Lord God [ Yahveh Elohim] said," etc. 
Follow the history on down and you come to the 
Jesus of the New Testament— the Yahveh or Jeho- 
vah of the Old. New Testament history treats of 
the advent, the three years' ministry, the temptation, 
the wrestling, the sacrificial death and glorious resur- 
rection of the Son of God. In the account of his 
death we are told, "But one of the soldiers with a 
spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out 
blood and water." The real significance of this is 

13 



14 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

brought out by Mr. Toplady in a verse of that beauti- 
ful hymn — 

"Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee; 
Let the water and the blood, 
From thy wounded side which flowed, 
Be of sin the double cure,— 
Save from wrath, and make me pure." 

The geography of the Bible is but a description of 
those parts of the earth's surface where, either in tri- 
umph or in humiliation, lived the people through 
whom the purposes of God, in the great work of 
human redemption, were to be wrought out,— until, 
overleaping the boundaries of this present world, it 
speaks of the earth purified by fire and peopled with 
a race redeemed by blood; and John, wrapped in 
apocalyptic vision, viewing the scene, cries, "And I 
saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away; and 
there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy 
city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of 
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Be- 
hold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and 
God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
crying, neither shall there be anymore pain: for the 
former things are passed aw T ay" (Rev. 21:1-4). 

In the Bible we have not only a law given as a code 



THE MAIN THEME. 15 

of morals, but also what is termed the ceremonial law 
— a law of types and shadows. As young children, 
by the use of pictures and object lessons, are taught 
to read, so the Lord by the types and shadows of this 
law endeavored to educate the mind of humanity up 
to the conception and apprehension of separation 
from moral defilement and cleansing from moral 
pollution. How clearly and how beautifully Paul, in 
the tenth chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, shows 
that this law being but "the shadow of good things to 
come," is ineffectual by its sacrifices to take away sin; 
and further shows how unerringly these oft-repeated 
sacrifices point to the offering once for all of the body 
of Christ, which offering alone is efficacious for per- 
fect remission and cleansing! 

The prophetical scriptures form no small and no 
unimportant part of the sacred word. How, like the 
search-light of God, prophecy shines down through 
the mist of the ages and reveals the Son of man! 
With what precision it discloses beforehand events 
which have now passed into history! In its light 
kings pass away, thrones crumble, and kingdoms 
decay. But it also reveals a King who shall reign in 
righteousness," "whose kingdom shall be an everlast- 
ing kingdom," and whose throne shall stand eter- 
nally. It speaks of the sprinkling of clean water that 

shall make clean — of the "fountain opened for 

sin and uncleanness". Neither can the spiritual 
application of these prophecies be questioned, for it 



16 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

was the Spirit of Christ in the holy men of old which 
signified, and testified beforehand these very things. 
Moreover, we are plainly told that "The testimony of 
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"; and without doing 
violence to the text we may transpose and read "The 
spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus". 

To undertake to show that the experimental teach- 
ing of the Bible leads directly to holiness would be to 
quote a large proportion of the holy word. We are 
told time and again of the provision made for the 
attainment of this experience. AVe are repeatedly 
invited and urged to the attainment of it; we are 
called with a holy calling;" and, finally, we arc under 
the express command of God concerning it. 

So apparent is it that holiness is the main theme of 
this blessed book that all civilized and Christian peo- 
ple unite in stamping it with the title, "Holy Bible". 
REV. EDWARD PAT80N HART, 

Senior General Superintendent qf the Free Meth- 
odist Church. 




REV. GKORGE WHITKFIEIJ) COIKMAN. 



THE NATUKE OF SCKIPTURAL HOLINESS. 

Before entering directly upon a consideration of 
the subject, it may be proper to state that there is no 
other kind of holiness. If the term holiness had 
never been misapplied or fraudulently applied in 
order to make unholy things seem holy, no qualifying 
term would be needed. To apply the term to any- 
thing that tolerates sin or that has affinity with evil 
of any kind, however, is to use it as a misnomer. 

All true holiness in the universe has come from 
God. No creature ever possessed any but what was 
derived from him. Hence wherever found— in angels 
or men— it is composed of the same qualities. It is, 
like God himself, unchangeable. He alone can im- 
part it to others. No creature, though possessed of 
it himself, can convey it to another. He can only 
direct the attention of another to the source of 
supply. God has been putting it within the hearts of 
the intelligent beings he has made, and bestowing it 
on every converted soul from the beginning; and yet 
the same infinite supply is with him as at first. Our 
natural sun is constantly giving off light and heat to 
a degree that passes human comprehension; and yet 
after thousands of years it shines with the same 
undiminished splendor as at first. What feeds its 
perpetual fires is beyond the power of human ken to 
apprehend. The glorious "Sun of righteousness" 
will never exhaust the supply of spiritual light and 

17 



18 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

heat essential to the life of holiness in the human 
soul. 

The nature of scriptural holiness is precisely the 
same as the nature and character of God. The char- 
acter of any being is produced by the moral nature 
he possesses, and the two always have the same 
moral complexion. Holiness, then, is likeness to 
God in moral nature and character. The Bible calls 
it "godliness." When God made man he said, "Let 
us make man in our image, after our likeness." 
Every child of God is a "partaker of the divine 
nature"— "partaker of his holiness." It is the highest 
quality in the divine Being, and the greatest boon he 
has to confer on his creatures. It not only produces 
the best type of character possible, but the only one 
in which true happiness is to be found. It is the 
supreme quality in the bosom of the Almighty, and 
in the hearts of all his children. 

Holiness is so much a part of God that we cannot 
think of him aright without including it. His 
natural attributes are wonderful and glorious, and 
surpass human thought; but his holiness eclipses 
them all. There is no moral quality necessarily in any 
of them; though they are all essential qualities of the 
divine character. Omnipotence, omniscience, omni- 
presence, immutability, eternity, are all essential 
attributes of divinity, but without holiness to direct 
in the use of them, God were better off without them. 
We may admire the exhibition of his power, wisdom, 



NATUBE OF HOLINESS. 19 

unchangeableness, his immortality and ability to be 
everywhere present, without dwelling on his holiness; 
but if we have true love for him, it is because of the 
beauty of his character, which is described as "glori- 
ous in holiness." Nor can this ever take place until 
we have "put on Christ", and hence become able to 
love what he loves and hate what he hates. 

Holiness has both a positive and a negative side. 
Holiness in God is that disposition or quality that 
gives him an infinite love for all that is right, and 
pure, and good, and an infinite abhorrence for all that 
is evil and unrighteous. It produces the same affec- 
tions and feelings in finite beings, in their measure, 
that it does in the Almighty. We always find in a 
holy person an aversion for that which is impure and 
sinful. "Ye that fear the Lord, hate evil." The 
measure of our hatred for that which is opposed to 
God indicates the intensity of our love for that which 
pleases him. Holiness is an active principle, and 
always stimulates its possessor to do all in his power 
to secure in others the same blessed experience. It 
produces in finite beings, in their measure, like feel- 
ings for the welfare of their fellows to that which 
moved our heavenly Father to provide salvation for 
the human family. 

Wherever holiness exists it actuates, dominates 
and controls the person. Hence, every Christian has 
his "fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life." 
Holiness will never go into partnership with what is 



20 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

unlike itself. If we desire holiness, before we can 
get it we shall have to abandon sin in all its forms 
and phases, and separate ourselves from sinners, 
except so far as duty requires us to mingle with 
them. "Wherefore come out from among them, and 
be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing.'' 
Holiness will never abide in the heart longer than it 
continues to be a perfectly welcome guest. It is too 
valuable a boon to be lavished on unappreciative 
hearts. Only those who have freely given all to 
obtain it would give it suitable attention if received. 
The Bible says, "Give not that which is holy unto the 
dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest 
they trample them under their feet, and turn again 
and rend you" (Matt 7:6). 

Love, as applied to God, is synonymous with the 
word holiness, or at least very nearly so. It is more 
likely, hovever, to confuse the ordinary mind, because 
we so commonly associate it with the same word as 
expressing natural affection. The two words in the 
original are entirely unlike. One is philos, meaning 
human love; and the other agape, referring to divine 
love. These two words, both translated "love" in 
our version, are entirely unlike in their deeper 
signification, although they have this in common, 
they are both affections of the heart and they act 
spontaneously where they exist. Love is numbered 
among the graces of the spirit, but is often used as 
inclusive of them all. "God is love." Watts exclaims,— 



NATURE OF HOLINESS. 21 

'* My passions hold a pleasing 1 reign, 
When love inspires my breast; 
Love, the divinest of the train, 
The sovereign of the rest." 

As love is often used to include all of the Christian 
graces, so holiness includes all the moral excellencies 
of Deity. 

Righteousness is not exactly synonymous with 
holiness, though they are nearly akin to each other in 
signification, and are sometimes used interchange- 
ably. Holiness refers more especially to the state, 
or moral condition of the person, while righteousness 
applies more appropriately to the acts performed. 
One who is holy in heart will always be righteous in 
life. The apostle uses these terms to describe the 
whole image of God, "And that ye put on the new 
man, which after God is created in righteousness and 
true holiness" (Eph. 4:24). 

Holiness is of such a nature that it may be 
possessed in different degrees. The lowest degree, 
however, will break the power and deliver from the 
dominion of sin. "For sin shall not have dominion 
over you" (Eom. 6:14). Entire holiness, or "perfect 
love", eradicates the very inbeing of sin. "The blood 
of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin" (I John 
1:7). The work of holiness is begun in justifying 
grace; it is completed, so far as the destruction of all 
that is opposed to God in us is concerned, when we 
are entirely sanctified. By the light of holiness 
received when converted we discover the need of 



22 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

inward purity and the will of God in its bestowment. 
When cleansed from all unrighteousness and filled 
with the perfect love of God all inclination to sin 
and proneness to wander will be gone. Still the 
vessel may be enlarged and repeatedly filled. The 
process of development in divine things will go on 
unobstructed forever. 
REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELB COLEMAN, 
General Superintendent of the Free Methodist 
Church. 



LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL HOLINESS 
CONTEASTED. 

The word holy, used only as an adjective, is in the 
New Testament in one hundred and seventy-five 
places. In eighty-six of these places it occurs in the 
phrase "Holy Ghost." In four places it is in the 
phrase "Holy Spirit." The words "ghost" and "spirit" 
are from the same word in the Greek, namely, pneu- 
ma. In each of these ninety places the absolute holi- 
ness of the third person of the Holy Trinity is denot- 
ed. In John 17: 11 the word holy is applied to the first 
person of the Trinity— "holy Father." In eight places 
the word is applied to the incarnated second person of 
the Trinity — our Lord Jesus Christ. The word in all 
such connections comprehends full or entire holiness. 
In four places it applies to the angels in the phrase, 
"holy angels"; here also it implies complete holiness. 
Four times it is used in a full sense in the phrase 
"Holy Scriptures," or words equivalent. In thirty 
places the word holy is applied to things, places, or 
actions: these may be complete or incomplete in holi- 
ness, which must be determined by the connection 
and circumstances of the case. 

In nearly all the other places in the New Testament 
where the adjective holy occurs it applies to human 
beings in some form. These are to be regarded as 
complete or incomplete in holiness according as they 
have attained to a complete deliverance from all in- 
herent sin or not. 

23 



24 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

There are two words in the original very different 
from each other, both which we translate holy. The 
one, hosios, means properly merciful. This occurs but 
six times. The other, ha < fins, which is found in the 
Greek New Testament one hundred and sixty-seven 
times, implies much more. It properly means sepa- 
rated— "separated from sin." When God is called 
holy, it means that he is separate from all moral and 
natural evil, and from all created beings and things. 
So of a human soul; it is entirely holy when sin is all 
separated from it, so that it can love God supremely, 
every other feeling being subservient to this. 

The term holiness occurs twelve times in the New 
Testainent. Its full meaning is deliverance from all 
sin, outward and inward, and Implies a pure heart 
(Matt. 5:8). 

Man in his natural state is a perfect negation no 
holiness. "For 1 know that in me (that is, in my 
flesh) dwelleth no good thing" | Worn. 7: Is . 

Man completely saved from sin is in an entirely 
positive state. "They were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost" (Acts 2:4). "Pilled with all the fuln< 
God" (Eph. 3:19). 

Now the transition from no holiness to complete ho- 
liness is not to be realized in an instant. God grades 
all his works. It takes time to pass from midnight to 
noon. In the creation each day's work showed prog- 
ress, a getting nearer to the final completeness. In 
the temple was first, the outer court; second, the holy 



LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL. 25 

place; third, the holy of holies. Birth, babyhood, 
childhood, youth, manhood; the patriarchal age, the 
Jewish age, the Christian age, the millennium, and 
then final and eternal glory. In Ezekiel's vision of 
the holy waters the waters rose first to the ankles, 
then to the knees, then to the loins, and then they be- 
came "a mighty river, waters to swim in, a river 
which could not be passed over.'' There are grades in 
Christian experience. Vile man, utterly fallen, can- 
not leap into entire holiness at a single bound. "They 
go from strength to strength in Zion." 

Xotice some of the steps taken as a soul makes 
progress from its Adamic or natural state toward the 
fulness to be found in Christ. Awakening, convic- 
tion, repentance, confession, saving faith, pardon, 
regenerating grace— or the implanting of the seed or 
principle of eternal life in the soul, adoption, assur- 
ance or the witness of the Spirit, victory over those 
peculiar temptations incident to early experience; and 
then later on, covering more or less time as God 
ordains, comes a sense of inward impurity, a feeling 
of want, a longing to become wholly Christlike, an 
inward struggle of soul to conquer inward sin, the 
exercise of the faith which brings the uttermost sal- 
vation, the inward cleansing, the full baptism of the 
Spirit, the inward witness of full salvation, victory 
ovei those strong temptations incident to the earlier 
stages of entire sanctification; and then, finally, a fix- 
edness or the soul in the enjoyment of all those bless- 



26 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

ings which belong to full salvation. Here is Jacob's 
ladder with twenty rounds, from the top round of 
which the entirely sanctified soul steps off into Para- 
dise as it leaves the present life for the eternal life 
beyond. 

Although these are the prime steps taken, yet in 
the Christian life are two principal epochs of experi- 
ence. The first is known as conversion, the second as 
entire sanctification. At conversion the soul experi- 
ences pardon, the impartation of spiritual life, adop- 
tion, and assurance, with love, joy and peace. 
Although these are to be thought of in the order here 
stated, yet they seem to come into the soul all at once 
in a flood of salvation, and there is no perceptible dif- 
ference of time. And for a season, longer or shorter, 
the soul is absorbed in its new experiences, and 
remains unconscious of its remaining inherent de- 
pravity. Then, if the soul has been faithful, there 
comes a realization of the need of a deeper experi- 
ence, even a conviction for, and, if properly sought, 
the experience of full salvation. 

The phrase "sanctify you wholly" in 1 Thess. 5:23, 
implies such a thing as a partial sanctification— this 
the newly justified soul has: now if he would be sanc- 
tified wholly he must walk in the light and be led of 
the Spirit until he attains unto that full redemption 
which is to be found by faith in the blood of the 
Lamb. We refer the reader to another text: "And I, 
brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, 



LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL. 27 

but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ (1 
Cor. 3: 1). This verse with its context shows us clearly 
that a "babe in Christ" is still to some extent carnal- 
it takes full salvation, experienced later on, to get all 
carnality, all inward sinfulness out of the heart. 

This full salvation, or holiness completed in the 
soul, is wholly the product of the Holy Spirit. No 
man can make himself holy, no, not even measurea- 
bly so. What may be termed legal holiness, or holi- 
ness by law, is purely a human product, and is entirely 
worthless. It consists in an effort to keep the law in 
our own strength, and is therefore simply Pharisaism. 
It strikes root in carnal self, and is the effort of a sin- 
ner to make himself his own Savior. It has a form of 
godliness, but knows absolutely nothing of the power 
and blessedness of true religion. It sometimes tries 
hard in an outward, sanctimonious way to keep the 
whole law, while it remains as graceless as the whist- 
ling wind, and as groundless as "the baseless fabric of 
a vision." It has a ritualism, ordinances and forms 
of service of which it is very tenacious, and seems to 
proceed on the supposition that outward activity and 
an outward conformity to the letter of the law are the 
very essence of the religion of Jesus. The apostle 
labels this kind of holiness thus— "my own righteous- 
ness, which is of the law" (Phil. 3:9). That was the 
kind of holiness he had while he was Saul of Tarsus, 
and a carping Pharisee. It goes without saying, that 
very much of the religion of the present age savors 
very strongly of this spurious kind. 



28 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

Evangelical holiness, on the other hand, strikes root 
in Christ, and is the product of saving grace in the 
soul. This is the work of God: the other is the work 
of man. Evangelical holiness is to be contradistin- 
guished from and contrasted with legal holiness very 
much as we would contrast day with night, life with 
death, sanity with insanity, or a living, healthy man 
with an automaton. The apostle puts his label on 
true holiness thus— "that which is through the faith 
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" 
(Phil. 3:9). 

Evangelical holiness, which is a result of saving 
faith in the infinite merits of Christ, is a divine, up- 
lifting power, which lifts the soul up into God, and 
heaven, and everlasting life. Conversely, a legal holi- 
ness— an effort to obtain justification and full right- 
eousness by obedience to law -will but prove a dead 
weight to the soul to sink it down into the fathomless 
depths of eternal despair. The voice of Revelation to 
fallen, depraved man is not, "Do, and live"; but, k T>i;- 

LIEVE, and BE SAVED." 

But does not a holy soul keep the holy law of God? 
He certainly does; but not in his own strength. Jesus 
says, "Without me ye can do nothing.'' It is only as 
we have Christ formed within us, the hope of eternal 
glory, that we are able through him to render all obe- 
dience to law, both in the letter and spirit of it. It is 
grace that triumphs over sin, not nature. The right- 
eousness of the law is fulfilled in and by them who 



LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL. 29 

walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (See 
Kom. 8:4.) 

Header, beware of the influence of those whose 
religion is mere form and ceremony without any sem- 
blance of spiritual life. If the Holy Ghost is not in 
the service, regard it not, be not conformed to it, seek 
better associations and a better religion. "The letter 
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." "To him who 
worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the 
ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Eom. 
4:5). "By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that 
not of yourselves; it [the salvation] is the gift of God" 
(Eph. 2:8). "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the 

flesh proflteth nothing." 

REV. LEVI WOOD, 

Original Proprietor and Editor of the Free Meth- 
odist. 



HOLINESS ATTAINABLE IN THE PRESENT 
LIFE. 

No intelligent religionist has ever yet asserted or 
assumed that anything unholy could enter heaven. 
It is agreed on every side that all who are eternally 
saved must be holy some time. The question at 
issue is, therefore, wholly one of time. 

Opinion divides us into three classes on this sub- 
ject: Those who believe we are made holy (a) in this 
present life, (b) at death, and (c) after death. 

The theory of entire sanctiiication as necessarily 
postponed until death is losing its place in theology; 
and, while it remains in the creed of a large number 
of believers, comparatively few are to be found who 
really believe it. The issue is being drawn more and 
more clearly between entire sanctiiication in this life 
and entire sanctification after death (future proba- 
tion), which is essentially the same as universalism. 

There are three sources at least on which we may 
draw for arguments on this subject. These are rea- 
son, revelation and experience. 

There are some considerations on account of which 
it would appear reasonable, at least, that God should 
make us holy in this present life. 

1. In such a state we could serve him better. The 
relations naturally existing between us and God 
would teach us that his people should serve him 
faithfully all their days. Sin is a hideous moral lep- 

30 



HOLINESS ATTAINABLE. 31 

rosy. Passing the question whether any acceptable 
service is possible while sin remains in the heart, it 
must be admitted that sin is a most serious hin- 
drance to our spiritual service. Holiness would won- 
derfully increase both the extent and value of that 
service, as well as the enjoyment of the person ren- 
dering it. How could God arrange for sin to remain 
in us all our lives ? What good can possibly result 
from such a condition ? What incalculable evil and 
misery must result from it instead! 

2. All ideals are based upon perfection. The art- 
ist, the architect, the mechanic, and all whose lives 
have anything whatever of aspiration connected with 
them, strive after perfection. Anything short of it 
brings criticism, partial or total failure, and fre- 
quently ruin, disgrace and misery. Such failures 
frequently turn mortals from the earthly to the heav- 
enly, from the material to the spiritual. Is it reason- 
able that God would put into the soul of man an ideal 
of love and loyalty to him and then constitute an en- 
vironment of impossibility ? It is contrary to reason 
to struggle for the impossible. 

3. No other moral standard of life is possible. It 
is either entire holiness or unmitigated confusion. 
All who deny holiness to be a possibility in this life 
admit that we should strive after it with all our pow- 
ers. If we cannot obtain what we strive after, who 
shall decide how much less than entire sanctification 
is allowable ? If some sin can be tolerated, who shall 



32 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

decide how much ? If we may be delivered from 
some sin, why not from still more ? If we can be rid 
of nearly all sin, why not of all ? If not of all, shall 
it be left to some denomination of believers, or to 
some society, or to a committee, or to each individual, 
to determine how much sin is allowable; to draw the 
line between the possible and the impossible? 

4. If holiness can be attained after death, it would 
cause our efforts towards its attainment to weaken if 
not entirely cease. There would be a more or less 
gradual, but a certain settling down to a life of self- 
indulgence. If it is asserted that none can be made 
holy after death who do not strive for it here, it may 
be answered: Who shall determine how much striv- 
ing here is necessary to entitle one to the benefits of 
future probation P 

5. Entire sanctification or holiness here, and that 
alone, answers all objections, satisfies all demands, 
reaches all ideals and produces satisfactory results. 
If God is able to make us holy here, it would 
unreasonable that he should be unwilling to do so. 
If he is both able and willing, how much more un- 
reasonable that it should not be done! 

When we turn from reason to Revelation we are 
embarrassed at the wealth of scripture at our com- 
mand. Instead of having to rely on one or two pass- 
ages of doubtful application, we have so many which 
are clear and plain, that it would seem they only 
needed to be read to convince anyone that entire 
sauctirication is for this life.. 



HOLINESS ATTAINABLE. 33 

1. It is God's will that we should be holy here, 
even in our bodies. If our bodies are holy by the in- 
dwelling of a holy soul, it must be in this life. "For 
God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto 
holiness" (1 Thes. 4:7; also read Rom. 12:1, 2; and 1 
Thes. 4:1, 3). 

2. Jesus and inspired writers, either for them- 
selves or for others, prayed for holiness as an experi- 
ence here. "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy 
word is truth And for their sakes I sanctify my- 
self, that they also might be sanctified through the 
truth" (John 17:17-19). "Wash me thoroughly 
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." 
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right 
spirit within me" (Psa. 51:2, 10). "The very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless 
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful 
is he that calleth you, who also will do it" (1 Thes. 
5:23,24). 

3. The word of God encourages and urges us 
towards holiness as a present experience. "Therefore 
leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us 
go on unto perfection" (Heb. 6:1). "I will walk 
within my house with a perfect heart" (Psa. 101:2). 
"Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a 
clean heart" (Psa. 73:1). "There is no fear in love ; 
but perfect love casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18). 
"That ye put on the new man which, after God, is 



34 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. 
4:24). 

4. It was Christ's mission to give us in this life 
complete deliverance from the nature as well as from 
the guilt of sin. "Who gave himself for us, that he 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto 
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works'' 
(Titus 2: 14). "Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for 
he shall save his people from their sins'' (Matt. 1:21). 
"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, 
that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 
3:8). "Ye know that he was manifested to take away 
our sins" (1 John 3:5). 

5. We are commanded to be holy. "I am the Lord 
your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and 
ye shall be holy; for I am holy" (Lev. 11:44). "Be- 
cause it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 
Peter 1:16). 

6. It is taught as an attained experience. "What 
shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that 
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that 
are dead to sin live any longer therein" (Horn. 6: 1, 2) ? 
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with 
him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
henceforth we should not serve sin" (Rom. 6:6). "But 
now, being made free from sin, and become servants 
to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end 
everlasting life" (Rom. 6:22). "That we, being deliv- 
ered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him 



HOLINESS ATTAINABLE. 35 

without fear, in holiness and righteousness before 
him, all the days of our life" (Luke 1:74, 75). 

It may be asked, "Can any examples of entire sanc- 
tification be found ? Are there any who have lived 
this experience ?" If one authentic case is produced, 
it puts those who deny the possibility of the experi- 
ence where they must prove that there can be no oth- 
ers. There are many such examples mentioned in the 
word of God. "Noah was a just man and perfect in 
his generations, and Noah walked with God" (Gen. 
6:9). "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose 
name was Job; and that man was perfect and up- 
right" (Job 1:1). "And they were both righteous 
before God, walking in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1:6). "Ye 
are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and 
unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that 
believe" (1 Thes. 2:10). 

Thousands of most credible witnesses have died 
with the profession that Christ had given them the 
experience of holiness, and that for years they had 
lived in peace, patience, and purity both of heart and 
life. Thousands more are living to-day in all denom- 
inations who constantly profess that Christ has given 
them an experience of perfect love. Shall we believe 
their testimony ? AVhy not ? God is no respecter of 
persons. 

REV. WALTER A. SELLEW A. M., 

Corresponding Editor of the Free Methodist. 



HOLINESS A PBIVILEGE. 

Mr. Worcester's definition of the word holy is, "(1) 
Pure in heart; free from sin; immaculate; good; pious; 
religious; devout." 'An holy angel/ (2) Consecrated; 
hallowed; sacred; divine. 'In the holy Scriptures/ " 
His definition of the word holiness is, "(1) The state 
or quality of being holy, or free from sin; purity of 
heart; sanctity; piety. — Continue in faith and holt 
(2) The state of being hallowed or consecrated; sacred- 
ness; divineness.' , You may notice that about the 
only difference in the terms u holy"and "holiness" is that 
the latter term refers to a fixed condition or state 
expressed by the former. The ending "ness" almost 
invariably indicates a fixed condition or state— as sin- 
fulness; righteousness; wickedness, etc. 

"Robinson's Calmet," or Bible Dictionary speaks 
thus on holiness: "Holy, Holiness. These terms 
sometimes denote outward purity or cleanliness; 
sometimes internal holiness. God is holy in a 
transcendent and infinitely perfect manner. He is 
the fountain of holiness, purity and innocency. He 
sanctifies his people and requires perfect holiness in 
those who approach him.'' The Lord, by the mouth 
of his servant Peter in the first chapter of his first 
epistle and sixteenth verse issues a plain, unmistaka- 
ble command: "Be ye holy for I am holy." Here 
we are commanded to be or to become holy as he 
is or to become possessed of the kind— not degree 
—of holiness of which he is inherently possessed. 

36 



HOLINESS A PRIVILEGE. 37 

Let us notice in what this holiness consists. First 
I would say, negatively: purity; freedom from sin. 
"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Hab. 
1:13). 'Tor there is no iniquity with the Lord our 
God (2 Chron. 19:7). Positively: the fulness of love, 
filled with love; yea, love itself. "God is love." Now 
as we are commanded to "be holy" as he is, we will 
admit without argument that we must be possessed 
of the same kind— so must first be made free from 
sin, or sinfulness; and then be filled with love, yea, 
with perfect love. Has the Lord made provision in 
the economy of salvation for bringing about a so- 
much-desired result ? I think so. Of the Savior it is 
written, "Who gave himself for us, that he might 
redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2: 14). 
The apostle under divine inspiration prayed that the 
Ephesian church "might be filled with all the fulness 
of God"; and as "God is love" his fulness must be love; 
hence he prayed that they might be filled with love. 
First or negatively, men are redeemed from all iniq- 
uity (and iniquity is defined as "a wicked act, wicked- 
ness"); then "purified" — made clean — and then filled 
with holy love, thus coming into possession of holi- 
ness (in kind) like that which the Lord possesses. So 
when I speak of holiness as a privilege, I speak of 
this kind. 

We understand by privilege "A peculiar benefit, 
advantage or favor; a right or immunity not enjoyed 



38 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

by others, or by all."— Webster. According to the 
word of God the privilege or right to become holy 
and enjoy all that comes or may come as a result of 
being holy belongs to all men. The provisions of the 
gospel are for all. "The grace of God that bringeth 
salvation hath appeared unto all men." — Titus. The 
gracious gospel invitations are to all. "Ho t very one 
that thirsteth, come ye"— Isaiah. "Come unto me 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give 
you vest."— Christ* So this heavenly benefit, this won- 
drous right, this gracious advantage or favor is for all. 
Your God-given privilege is to be holy, as was p]noch. 
Your heaven-born right is to be righteous, as was 
Zacharias. It is yours, reader, to walk in the foot- 
steps of the holiest of men. 

We must be careful to bear in mind that these won- 
drous privileges are conditioned privileges. "If we 
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins." "If we walk in the light as he is in the 
light, we have fellowship one with another; and the 
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin." That little conjunction "if" always indicates 
condition. Those who meet the conditions may 
enjoy the privileges. 

A privilege affording us bodily comfort and satis- 
faction is appreciated and enjoyed, though it be but 
to take shelter in the stranger's barn and be thus far 
protected from the storm. To be invited to share his 
cozy sitting room and to occupy his comfortable couch 



HOLINESS A PRIVILEGE. & 

is a greater privilege still. The privilege increases as 
we discover in the supposed stranger an old-time 
friend with whom we can enjoy congenial, instructive 
and elevating conversation, and who will allow us to 
revel in his vast library and hold audience with the 
greatest minds of earth. The privilege increases in 
value as we ascend from the gratifying of bodily to 
mental wants and desires. These privileges thus 
alluded to are temporal and necessarily limited and 
brief. But think of holiness as a privilege! This 
relates to my body, mind and spirit, throughout time 
and eternity. It is pardon now and pardon forever; 
peace now and forever; joy now and forever; soul 
rest now and forever; purity now and evermore; fel- 
lowship here and hereafter; oneness with all that is 
pure and good and grand and glorious, eternally. 

"He that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree 
of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." 
God's holy heaven and all it contains is for the holy, 
and only for the holy. 

Note in conclusion the following passages indicat- 
ing your privileges: "Having therefore these prom- 
ises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all 
filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in 
the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7:1). "Having therefore, 
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he 
hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to 
say, his flesh; and having a high priest over the house 



40 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full 
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from 
an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure 
water" (Heb. 10: 19-22). "Therefore leaving the prin- 
ciples of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto per- 
fection And this will we do, if God 

permit" (Heb. 6:1-3). 

REV. CHARLES B. EBEY, 
Corresponding Editor of the Free Methodist. 




REV. BURTON RKXSSAI.AKR JONES. 



HOLINESS A NECESSITY. 

The term holiness suggests the idea of wholeness, 
completeness. It is very comprehensive and includes 
"all things involved in complete salvation from sin" 
and the possession of the divine nature. Holiness is 
absolute moral purity and comprises the entire sanc- 
tification of the will, the affections and sensibilities. 
In its experience the secret, subtle life of self is 
destroyed and nothing contrary to pure love remains 
in the heart. Every faculty of the soul and every 
sense and power of the body is brought into harmoni- 
ous action with the will of God. 

In urging the necessity of holiness as a distinct 
work we are in accord with the teachings of John 
Wesley and leading Methodist writers. "The church 
is never in her true normal state except when she is 
holy. Holiness is her only divinely appointed orna- 
ment. Science and wealth have often ruined the 
church; her ornament and power are only in her 
purity." — Holiness Manual. "The doctrine of entire 
sanctification, as a distinct work wrought in the 
soul by the Holy Ghost, is the great distinguishing 
doctrine of Methodism. This given up and we have 
little left which we do not hold in common with 
other evangelical denominations." — Br. Jesse T. Peck. 
That holiness is a necessity to the church of Christ is 
evident from the following considerations. 

1. God wills that his people should be holy. This 

is clearly expressed in the scriptures. "For this is 

4i 



42 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

the will of God even your sanctifieation" (1 Thes. 
4:3). What God wills that his children should attain 
must be regarded as of the greatest importance. 
Believers are to be cleansed from u all filthiness of the 
flesh and spirit'' that they may be able to "perfect 
holiness in the fear of God." Licentiousness, 
depraved appetites, sensual indulgences— as they 
relate to the flesh— together with ill tempers, pride, 
worldly ambition, covetousness, harshness, revenge, 
deceit, self-seeking, and such like— as they relate to 
the spirit— are offensive to God and should be 
cleansed away. A leper once came to Jesus and 
"worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou 
canst make me clean.'' It was the will of the leper 
to be cleansed, and he had faith that if the Master 
willed it the work would be done. "And Jesus put 
forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will; be 
thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was 
cleansed" (Matt. 8:2, 3). God wills the entire sanc- 
tifieation of ('very believer, and as soon as the 
believer makes that will his choice, no other power 
can prevent the work being done. It may be done 
immediately. In Holiness Manual we read", "This 
is God's will now, that we be sanctified. The will of 
God authorizes our sanctifieation; and when we put 
ourselves in perfect line with that will it will most 
surely be executed within us." In Purity and 
Maturity the author says, "Our purification is God's 
will in both the permissive and authoritative sense, 



HOLINESS A NECESSITY. 43 

Duty and privilege are bound together in 

religious things; duty is privilege, and privilege is 
duty." All privileged attainments in the will of God 
are necessary to spiritual growth and development. 

2. Holiness is included in the divine promises. 
And what God promises the soul needs. Purity was 
included in the old covenant. "And the Lord thy 
God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy 
seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, 
and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live" (Deut. 
30:6). According to the best authorities "the circum- 
cision of the heart implies the purification of the 
soul from all unrighteousness." "Then will I 
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: 
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will 1 
cleanse you" (Ezek. 36:25). 

The Gospel abounds in assurances of God's willing- 
ness, ability and faithfulness to sanctify his church. 
At the close of St. Paul's earnest prayer for the entire 
sanctiflcation of the church at Thessalonica he adds, 
"Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it" 
(1 Thes. 5:23, 24). In 1 Jno. 1:9 it is written, "If we 
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'' 
Here is an assurance of God's faithfulness to fulfil 
his promise, and that the promise comprehends the 
work of cleansing from all unrighteousness. These 
exceeding great and precious promises make it possi- 
ble for believers to become "partakers of the divine 



44 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

nature." And the soul's necessities require that we 
measure up fully to this standard. 

3. Its necessity is seen in the provision made. 
The infinite sacrifice made for the complete redemp- 
tion of mankind from sin argues that nothing short 
of that will meet the divine requirement. In refer- 
ring to the dawn of the gospel day the prophet says, 
"In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the 
house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
for sin and uncleanness" (Zech. 13:1). Reference is 
here made to atonement provision for the cleansing 
of the human heart. The name given to the Son 
of Mary indicated his mission into the world: "Thou 
shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his 
people from their sins." Here is provision for com- 
plete salvation from sin. Jesus came to "destroy the 
works of the devil." All sin is of the devil. Hence 
"the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from 
all sin." Thank Godl Here is complete cleansing 
for every longing, believing soul. 

4. God requires his people to be "clean" and 
"holy". Things non-essential are not required in the 
scriptures. Hence whatever God commands must be 
a necessity. That which God expresses as his will, 
includes in his promises and for which he has 
made provision in Christ he requires his children to 
attain. We cannot be guiltless and neglect to enter 
upon our purchased inheritance. 

The word of the Lord to Israel was, "Ye shall be 



HOLINESS A NECESSITY. 45 

holy: for I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2). 
These words are quoted by St. Peter as applicable to 
the church under the gospel dispensation. Jesus 
said to his disciples, "Be ye therefore perfect even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect." When 
asked what is the first commandment of the law the 
Savior replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind." These words are imperative and clearly 
express the duty of every believer to seek the perfec- 
tion of divine love in the heart. Yea, "The end of 
the commandment is charity [love] out of a pure 
heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith un- 
feigned." God does not require impossibilities, and 
this blessed experience may be attained through the 
provision he has made. 

5. Holiness is necessary as a qualification for 
Christian duty. Life is attended with grave respons- 
ibilities. Mankind are not placed here simply to 
prepare for the hereafter. Personal happiness is not 
the Christian's highest aim. God is to be glorified 
and his will wrought out. Certain graces are to be 
exercised in this life which cannot be exercised in the 
life to come. To this end holiness is a necessity. 
(1) In a life of holiness we can prove our courage, 
fidelity and loyalty to God in the midst of persecu- 
tion and opposition. Along the line between sin and 
holiness the seat of war is located. There the enemy 
concentrates his forces, and there our graces are 



46 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

tested. There will be no enemies in heaven, and he 
who would prove himself a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ must do so in this world. Be brave here, 
stand by the right and prove your loyalty to truth 
and holiness in this land of enemies. When you 
reach the celestial city the last enemy will have been 
conquered— the last foe vanquished. (2) Here we 
can practice resignation to the divine will in the 
midst of sorrow and bereavement. To be able to say 
from the heart at all times, "Thy will be done in earth 
[in me] as it is in heaven," all inward corruption, all an- 
tagonistic desires and tendencies must be removed and 
the heart's submission, trust and love must be perfect 
Heart purity admits of no murmuring nor complain- 
ing against God amid the most afflicting providen* 
This grace cannot be exercised in heaven for 
"There'll be no sorrow there." (3) The grace of 
pure, disinterested benevolence is to be exercised in a 
life of holiness. To feed the hungry, clothe the 
naked, visit the sick, build churches, endow schools, 
and otherwise support the cause of God, as oppor- 
tunity offers and means warrant, is the work of 
practical holiness. Some Christians are intending to 
be exceedingly generous after they die, but their 
generosity often falls into the lap of the unscrupu- 
lous lawyer or of undeserving heirs. True holiness 
is needed to open the fountain of beneficence in this 
life. Such acts of kindness and deeds of charity 
cannot be performed in heaven. No suffering enters 
there. "In heaven are found no sons of want." 



HOLINESS A NECESSITY. 47 

6. Holiness is necessary to the highest degree of 
usefulness. At conversion even the disciples of 
Christ were not fully qualified for their important 
calling. Jesus said to them, "Tarry ye at the city of 
Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on 
high", assuring them that they should receive power 
after the Holy Ghost had come upon them. They 
needed the pentecostal baptism to prepare them for 
their life-work. When with one accord assembled 
the mighty baptism of refining fire came upon the 
church. As a result a sweeping revival broke out 
and thousands were converted to God and added to 
the church. Pentecostal power is necessary to insure 
revivals of the pentecostal type. There is real elo- 
quence in a holy life. It speaks in certain tones to 
all with whom its possessor associates, and reaches 
hearts that no arguments can reach and no reasoning 
convince. Mr. Wesley instructed his ministers to 
"urge the converts on to holiness", for in this lay the 
secret of their stability and their power for useful- 
ness. 

7. Holiness is necessary for admission to heaven. 
"Follow peace with all men, and holiness without 
which no man shall see the Lord'' (Heb. 12:14). No 
matter what else one may possess, without holiness 
he is not qualified for heaven. Only the "pure in 
heart" shall see God. He who entertains the hope of 
seeing Christ as he is must "purify himself even as 
he [Christ] is pure." Fair professions, splendid gifts, 



48 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

extensive learning, without holiness will not answer 
the divine claim. They are like the corpse that has 
the human form but lacks the life— the soul. 

REV. BURTON RENSSELAER JONES. 
General Superintendent of the Free Methodist 
Church. 



HOLINESS AS BELATED TO JUSTIFICA- 
TION AND SANCTIFICATION. 

Justification is an act or sentence of God whereby a 
sinner, recognized as guilty, upon the exercise of pen- 
itent faith in Christ as a substitute who has borne his 
sins, is pardoned and accepted into divine favor. At 
the same moment God does this he imparts the Holy 
Spirit who regenerates (implants divine life by which 
the soul is "born of God''), adopts and witnesses to the 
penitent that he is made a child of God. So Dr. Pope 
and Richard Watson agree. Wesley seems to make 
the regeneration consequent on the Spirit's testimony 
of adoption. A justified state is inclusive of all these 
experiences. The power of sin inward and outward 
— of indwelling sin, observe— is broken. The love of 
God is shed abroad in the heart of such, and the obli- 
gation is then pressed upon them (Rom. 6:19), "As ye 
have yielded your members servants to uncleanness 
and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your 
members servants of righteousness unto holiness." 
"Righteousness here is a conformity to the divine will; 
holiness, to the whole divine nature" ( Wesley's Notes). 

Hearty submission to the divine will is a character- 
istic of a state of justification. It leads to holiness. 
But there is a material difference. Indwelling sin, 
while defiling and enslaving the entire man, body, 
mind and will, has its chief seat in the involuntary 
powers of the soul— the affections and desires. The 

49 



50 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

awakened sinner says, "To will is present with me, 
but how to perform what is good I find not." As he 
deepens in penitence and conviction, he says, "I 
delight in the law of God after the inward man." 
Still he is enslaved by "another law in his members". 
These "members" are "the desires of the flesh [body! 
and of the mind" (Eph. 2:3; Col. 3:5), called in Gal. 
5:24 "the flesh, with the affections and lusts". The 
regenerate (justified) man is enabled to present his 
members unto God as instruments of righteousness. 
He yet finds, however, much resistance in them, and 
all his moral powers and exercises contaminated and 
weakened by the presence of the sin that still dwell- 
eth in him. 

Sanctification, though closely allied to holiness, is 
rather a process of making holy than holiness itself. 
In its more common use it recognizes the presence of 
sin, and makes holy by a process or act of purifica- 
tion. Holiness does not necessarily regard sin, only 
as its eternal opposite and antagonist when contem- 
plated. God, angels, Christ, are holy without sancti- 
fication in this sense. Their holiness is a positive 
quantity— a fulness of rectitude, a quality of charac- 
ter and disposition positively loving and promoting 
truth and righteousness. Our holiness is God-like- 
ness—godliness — also ' a positive quantity. It is 
effected, however, by purification. 

Sanctification, then, answers to all those expres- 
sions, acts, or processes, by which "the old man" is 



JUSTIFICATION, SANCTIFICATION. 51 

put off, "the flesh" or "carnal mind" purged out, "the 
body of sin" destroyed. Hence the propriety of con- 
sidering it both as a process and an act— rather a 
process admitting of definite, instantaneous comple- 
tion—as in Wesley's illustration of a man gradually 
dying and at length expiring. There is nothing 
in the nature of the case limiting its meaning to 
either a process or an act alone. Whatever removes 
carnality from the thoughts, affections, imagina- 
tions, desires, purposes, words or actions of a man, 
either positively or negatively manifested, does by 
so much sanctify him and increase his holiness. 
But the purport of the crucifixion of "our old man" is 
"that the body of sin might be destroyed" — as truly 
so as that a man nailed to a cross should shortly 
expire. Completed sanctification results in perfected 
holiness. 

We should note that the divine life implanted in 
conversion, with all its expressions of thought, affec- 
tions, purposes and aspirations, is holy. And inas- 
much as this new life is made predominant in the 
soul when implanted, so as to control and describe 
the character of the man, he is thus made truly 
(though not fully) holy in a state of justification. 
The graces of this Spirit-begotten life are capable of 
growth, and growth in holiness is promoted by sanc- 
tification. Unlimited, unhindered growth requires 
the complete extirpation of opposite tempers and 
desires, by entire sanctification. 



52 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

1. Justification as an act reconciles a man to God 
and is prerequisite to all holiness. 

2. As a state it includes true holiness in its begin- 
nings and constitutes a holy man. This should be 
clearly apprehended and upheld; otherwise we shall 
have spurious conversions, false professions, incon- 
sistent living and a worldly church. Yet it should 
not be used to grieve the children of God, whose 
adoption is scripturally recognized in spite of many 
defects and inconsistencies. 

3. Sanctification is both a process and an act of 
purification of heart and life from remaining sin. 
Chiefly it concerns the destruction of indwelling sin as 
a defiling principle diffused throughout the soul. If 
we are too stringent in its limitation we shall fail of 
thoroughness in our investigation and confession of 
sin in its manifold existence and workings. If we are 
too diffuse in our dealing we shall lop off the branches 
and leave the root of the tree in the heart. 

4. Holiness is conformity to and agreement with 
God in his thoughts, feelings, disposition and attitude 
toward truth and righteousness, toward sin and sin- 
ners. Sanctification is the means of perfecting it in 
quality, and endless growth of increasing it in degree. 

5. Entire holiness is infinitely obligatory and 

important. 

REV. CHARLES M. DAMON, 

Ex-President of Orleans College. 



CONVICTION FOE HOLINESS. 

The power of seeing is possible only in the presence 
of light. When God gives spiritual light, he gives 
knowledge of spiritual things and conditions. "The 
entrance of thy words giveth light." God's word is a 
revelation of spiritual truth which gives us the knowl- 
edge of God himself. 

The sinner is under a total eclipse of this knowl- 
edge until awakened. In conviction the gloom 
begins to be mingled with f oregleams of the coming 
day. The rising Sun of righteousness begins to dis- 
pel the night before he appears on the horizon. As 
time progresses u the bright and morning Star" appears 
in token of coming day. Faith and hope begin to 
dawn, though dimly, within the awakened mind. As 
light increases he begins to observe that he is clad in 
tatters, and a little later that these are covered with 
filth, while his substance is all spent, and he is left a 
pauper and an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. 
He is worse than that, but in the midst of these dis- 
tracting external revelations do not add to his misery 
the disclosure of internal corruption. He has enough 
now to sink a soul in eternal despair, but for the sight 
of the morning Star, which betokens the dawning of 
a better day. 

Still the light increases, and at length the day is 
born. "The day star hath arisen in his heart" to give 
"the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ." Now he can sing, 

53 



54 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

" Long my imprisoned spirit lay, 

Fast bound in sin and nature's night; 
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, 
I rose,— the dungeon flamed with light." 

As time progresses new and more appalling discov- 
eries of inbred sin are made, and all hope and faith 
would collapse if the vision continued; but in mercy 
God tempers the revelation. (Do not despise the "dark 
hours'' in the justified relation— they are seasons of 
special mercy.) A uniform testimony runs through 
orthodox churches to this unhappy discovery follow- 
ing every genuine conversion. And this discovery 
and conviction must necessarily precede and form a 
part of a conviction for holiness. By the light which 
enters the heart at conversion the discovery of the cor- 
rupt internal condition is made. I n the absence of this 
light inbred sin maybe honestly denied as existing, 
but seldom by one a fortnight after a true conversion. 
When the discovery is made, the question is pressed 
immediately, what shall be done? The preachers 
have many theories. But the soul ready to cut off 
right hands or pluck out right eyes in order to gain a 
right knowledge of God's will, turns to the Bible to 
see what God says he should do about it. He therein 
learns the name of what he has discovered. It is 
called "the body of sin," the ''carnal mind," the "old 
man." Next in his search he discovers what to do 

with it — "Our old man is crucified that the body of 

sin might be destroyed." Knowing that crucifixion 
is accomplished only this side the grave he begins to 



CONVICTION FOR HOLINESS. 5o 

Search for the time when the matter may be accom- 
plished; and learns that even now all inward sin may 
be put away, for "If w T e walk in the light as he is in 

the light the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us 

from all sin." He also discovers his part in the ope- 
ration to be one of confession and renunciation. 

Conviction for holiness comes as any other convic- 
tion comes— by light. Standing in the broad light of 
day a man with eyes can no more honestly doubt or 
deny his surroundings and the matters of fact con- 
cerning them than he can deny his own existence. 
The light is reflected by sanctified lives. Hence the 
need of setting "living epistles" of holiness before the 
church and the world, who may be "read and known 
of all men." "Let your light [of holiness] so shine 
before men, that they may see your good works, and 
glorify your Father which is in heaven." Perhaps we 
complain that the doctrine of holiness is not received 
as extensively and as fully as it should be, but are we 
setting an undeniable example of holy living before 
men ? The preacher has not delivered his soul when 
he has preached the doctrine; he is just as fully obli- 
gated to set before his flock and the world a holy life 
as a holy doctrine. Character cannot be hid from pub- 
lic view— it will out. God will not let it be hid, what- 
ever its quality. Influence is the radiating heat and 
light of internal character. Let us not wonder, then, 
at so little or so feeble conviction for holiness, while 
we fail to set before the gaze of men an example 



56 A SYMPOSIUM ON IIOLINE-< 

which is "a burning and a shining light/' and whose 
diffusing rays so light up the moral darkness of the 
world that men will know that we have been with 
Jesus and learned of him. He has said, "And I, if I 
be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." 
Lift him up on the cross— allow men to gaze upon 
you in a thousand tribulations, on a thousand crosses, 
manifesting and revealing the spirit and patience of 
Jesus Christ and our altars will be filled, as of yore, 
with seekers of Bible holiness* 

REV. A.J. WKINNEYt 
Of the ( 'olorado ( 'ortfi n nee. 



[As pertinent to the subject discussed in the fore- 
going paper, and because of its adaptation to throw 
light on another phase of the subject, we here .-lib- 
join the following anonymous item. Editor.] 

The conviction for holiness or entire sanctiiication 

which a believer experiences, and by which he is led 

to seek for full and perfect conformity to the divine 

likeness, is not a conviction of guilt or condemnation 
upon his soul, as too many have supposed. The fad 
is, entire freedom from condemnation is the only con- 
dition in which it is possible successfully to seek for 
inward and complete sanctiiication. Nor is convic- 
tion for holiness a conviction of backslidings, all of 
which need to be repented and forgiven the same as 
other sins. A felt need of more religion is not con- 
viction for holiness; since there is no state of grace 



CONVICTION FOE HOLINESS. 57 

in which this may not be experienced, and in a justi- 
fied state it may be experienced without any clear 
apprehension of what inbred sin is, or of the neces- 
sity of being cleansed therefrom. A conscious lack 
of power for service, though it may enter into or 
accompany conviction for holiness, does not of itself 
constitute the conviction of which we speak. 

What then does constitute true and proper convic- 
tion for holiness? We answer: It is a persuasion 
wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the justi- 
fied believer, (1) Of a lack of inward conformity to 
all the will of God; (2) Of the existence of positively 
depraved or sinful propensities and tendencies within 
him, which struggle for ascendency and are only sub- 
dued by grace; (3) Of the provision made by the will 
of God, through the atonement and by the gift of the 
Holy Spirit, for the removal of all inward sin, and 
the investiture of the soul with all spiritual virtues 
unmixed with moral evil; (4) Of the necessity of 
immediate and perfect inward cleansing; all of which 
is accompanied with a loathing of carnal self, and a 
restless, yearning desire to be pure in heart and filled 
with all the fulness of God. He who experiences 
such a conviction is surely not far from the kingdom 
of "perfect love." 

We must express it, however, as our firm belief that 
the way in which many preach and teach holiness at 
the present time misleads scores of supposed seekers 
of this grace, inducing them to rest in a superficial 



58 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

experience for a time, from which, at length, they 
turn to a more worldly and carnal life than they 
indulged before. It is assumed by not a few of these 
teachers that all professors of religion, no matter how 
backslidden they may have been in heart or how 
inconsistent and crooked in life, are in a state at once 
to believe for and receive the sanctifying grace of God; 
whereas multitudes of them have need of repent- 
ance, confession, restitution and pardon before they 
can be in a justified state and able properly to appre- 
hend their need of sanctifying grace or to exercise 
requisite faith for its reception. One of the greatest 
needs of the "holiness movement" of to-day is such a 
type of preaching and teaching as will produce a 
deeper conviction of inbred sin, and a correspond- 
ingly higher conception of the nature and fruit of true 
holiness. 



CONSECBATION AND HOLINESS. 

1. Holiness. By holiness I mean 1. The comple- 
tion of the work of saving grace in the heart of a jus- 
tified believer, cleansing it from all sin, thus making 
it perfectly pure in God's sight: no wrong temper, 
nothing contrary to love remaining in the heart. 

2. The heart thus made pure, filled with love to God 
and man, so that the believer loves God with all his 
heart, and his neighbor as himself, in accordance with 
the divine command. 

3. Subsequent walking before the Lord in all the 
commandments of the Lord blameless, doing the will 
of God from the heart. 

This kind of holiness, which is called "true holi- 
ness," I believe to be in substance what many writers 
mean by such phrases as, "Entire sanctification," 
"Perfect Love," "The Higher Life," etc. It begins 
the moment one is truly converted to God, or, in other 
words, is "justified by faith"; but it is not finished 
then, but may be finished subsequently as far as 
cleansing the heart from sin and filling it with love is 
concerned, instantaneously, whenever the believer 
fully trusts in the atoning blood of Christ for it. 
"The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I 
pray God your whole spirit, soul and body be pre- 
served blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will 
do it" (1 Thes. 5:23-24). "In whom also after that ye 
believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of prom- 
ise" (Eph. 1:13), 



60 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

II. Consecration. By consecration I mean that 
solemn, sacred and entire dedication of one's self to 
the service of God, which is made subsequent to con- 
version and prior to the complete purification of the 
heart. This none can truly make unless deeply moved 
and led thereto by the Holy Spirit of God. That 
there is such a work of special and entire consecra- 
tion, which is the act of the creature, by divine assist- 
ance, appears to be both rational and scriptural; and, if 
so, essential— as far as light is given— to the comple- 
tion of the work of saving grace here, and the subse- 
quent abiding of the soul in entire holiness before 
God. 

As a rule, the awakened, penitent seeker after par- 
don and divine acceptance lias but little understanding 
of God's requirements other than that he must aban- 
don his sins, submit himself to God and accept of 
Christ. This submission or surrender of the sinner to 
God is probably regarded by some theorists as entire 
consecration. The most, I think, that can properly 
be said of it is, it is a wholesale consecration. That 
the seeker after pardon, whose mind is darkened con- 
cerning spiritual things, and who is exercised with a 
depressing sense of guilt and condemnation, should 
have a clear sense of what entire consecration to the 
service of God means, is scarcely supposable. 

But subsequent to "being justified by faith," and 
while walking "in the light as God is in the light," the 
believer in due time comes to the place in his experi- 



CONSECRATION AND HOLINESS. 61 

ence where he feels, not a sense of loss, but of the 
need of a pure heart, of a more perfect conformity to 
all the divine will,— a longing of soul after all the ful- 
ness of God. And it is here, just at this point of ex- 
perience, that in the effort to obtain this second state 
of grace, the Holy Spirit's light shines clearer than 
ever before on the Christian pathway, and now the 
Holy Spirit begins to itemize to the believer what was 
included in the divine purpose by the required uncon- 
ditional surrender when pardon was sought and 
found. 

Following this itemizing operation of the Holy 
Spirit is the believer's entire consecration, in which 
he must evermore sacredly hold himself before the 
Lord. His intellect, with all its faculties; his soul, 
with all its propensities and powers; his heart, with 
all its capacity to love the good and hate the evil; his 
reputation, to be divinely cared for while he obeys his 
Master; his body — its eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet, 
all— for no profane use, but for use in harmony with 
the will of God; all worldly possessions laid at the 
Redeemer's feet to be henceforth righteously used, 
—all, all, now and forever the Lord % s! 

With such a devotement of one's self to the Lord, 
and which to many means vastly more in the itemiz- 
ing operation of the Holy Spirit than I can here nar- 
rate, the soul may launch out on the sanctifying 
promises of God, go down under the cleansing blood 
of Christ, and arise entirely renewed in the life and 
love of God. Amen! 



62 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

"I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service; and be not conformed to this world: but be 
ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that 
ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and 
perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:1-2). This message 
was "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called 
to be saints," which means holy ones. All God's peo- 
ple are called to be holy ones, completely holy. Hence 
they should heed the exhortation given to the Ro- 
mans, and present their bodies (a part is here put for 
the whole) "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto 
God," that so all forbidden worldly conformity may 
cease, and there may be a complete transformation by 
the renewing of the mind. Thus may they "prove 
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of 
God,"— which is the sanctiiication of "the whole 
spirit, soul and body." 

REV. 310SES N. DOWNING, 

Corresponding Editor of the Free Methodist. 



THE BELATION OF FAITH TO HOLIXESS. 

In the process of salvation there are successive 
steps, by which the soul is led out of darkness into 
light. But the final step which brings one into the 
kingdom of God's dear Son is faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. There are some things, however, which 
naturally precede faith as necessary conditions of the 
same, and which should be well considered. 

First, the understanding must be divinely enlight- 
ened. There must be, to some degree, a revelation of 
the divine character before it is possible for man to 
"believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him." The Spirit must 
"convince of sin, of righteousness and of judgment," 
thus making man feel the necessity of a Saviour, 
before he can be led to believe the things necessary to 
salvation. How can a soul dead in sin be conscious 
of its condition until awakened by the Spirit of the 
living God? "How shall they believe in him of 
whom they have not heard ? And how shall they 
hear without a preacher?" (Bom. 10:14.) The eyes 
of our understanding must be opened to behold our 
spiritual necessities before we can reasonably be 
expected to exercise that faith in God which alone 
can render us acceptable to him; and by means 
divinely appointed God provides for the enlighten- 
ment of all men. 

Another process which necessarily precedes the 



64 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

exercise of saving faith is entire consecration of self 
and all its interests to God. This is our part in the 
great work of salvation. It must proceed from a 
firm conviction that God is infinite both in wisdom 
and goodness— that he knows what is for our highest 
good and from his very nature is morally bound to 
require of us only that which is essential to the same. 
Convinced of this, there must be an entire surrender 
of the human to the divine will before we can with 
confidence seek additional light or blessing. 

Again, we must by a rigid denial of carnal self and 
a perfect resignation to the divine will exercito our- 
selves unto godliness if we would attain unto saving 
faith. Thus we must "strive to enter in at the strait 
gate." To strive, according to the scriptural sense, is 
to agonize. This is the original word. Not that we 
must wait for an agony of feeling before we begin 
this important work— this is not the scriptural idea. 
Striving is an allusion to the Grecian contests in 
which the competitors were expected to exert them- 
selves to the utmost to win the crown which was to 
be placed upon the victors brow. Thus the con- 
testants were said to strive (agonize) in the race for 
victory. So, by rigid self-denial, thorough consecra- 
tion to God and continual waiting upon him in the 
appointed means of grace, viz., watching, fasting, 
liible reading, meditation and prayer, must we 
exercise ourselves unto godliness, if we would attain 
unto that faith without which it is impossible to 
please him, 



FAITH AND HOLINESS. 65 

But we must beware of trusting or resting in this 
"exercise" on our part as anything meritorious in the 
sight of God. This would be seeking salvation by 
works; whereas it is written, "By grace are ye saved 
through faith" These are not works of righteous- 
ness or merit, but "fruits meet for repentance", and 
such as bring the soul into that changed attitude 
before God, where it can confidently look to him to 
be supplied "with all spiritual blessings" in Christ. 
Nor does feeling necessarily have anything to do 
with this except to follow as a result. God enlight- 
ens our understanding concerning his own character 
and requirements, and as to our necessities and 
duties. This may be but is not necessarily accom- 
panied by any great degree of emotion. In that light 
we abase and deny self and surrender our all to the 
divine will until we are conscious that in this respect 
we have made a complete offering before the Lord. 
Then have we reached the point where we can and 
may exercise that faith which is the final and 
absolute condition of salvation from sin. 

"But what", says one, "is the faith which sanctifies ? 
What am I to believe in order to salvation ?" And 
someone replies, "Why, just believe you are saved, 
that is all." And the mind of that inquirer naturally 
replies, within itself at least, "But I know I am not 
saved, and will believing a falsity make it a fact ?" 
And here many get into perplexity which often leads 
them either to despair or else to rest in a superficial 



66 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

show of godliness, either of which extreme is danger- 
ous and often fatal. What then are we to believe as 
the final condition of deliverance from sin ? 

First, we must believe in ourselves— that we have 
fully met, on our part, all the conditions previous and 
necessary to a simple faith, according to the revealed 
will of God. When our offering has been made per- 
fect before the Lord, his promises are, "I will receive 
you." I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye 
shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all 
your idols will I cleanse you;" and, "the blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." These are 
promises which God has declared shall be fulfilled 
when we thus seek him with undivided hearts. 

The second thing we are to believe is that the 
word of God in these promises of deliverance from 
sin through the blood of his Son Jesus Christ is now 
fulfilled in us. Mr. Wesley's way of explaining the 
faith by which we are sanctified was this: It is a 
divine evidence or condition (1) That God hath prom- 
ised it [sanctification] in the holy Scriptures; (2) That 
what God hath promised he is able to perform; (3) 
That he is able and willing to do it now; (4) That he 
now doeth it (Sermons, Vol. I. pp. 390, 391). Believing 
this, we should rest in that belief. "And he that 
believeth [this] hath the witness in himself"— his own 
consciousness bearing witness to the fact. When our 
faith is thus made perfect, God seals the finished 
work of grace by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then, 



FAITH AND HOLINESS. 67 

in addition to the witness of our own consciousness, 
"The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit" 
that we are purified from sin. 

But the victory over sin achieved by this instan- 
taneous exercise of faith is not a sufficient guarantee 
of future exemption from sin. It is "by faith we 
have access into this grace", and it is plainly written, 
"by faith ye stand." The exercise of faith by which 
we overcame sin yesterday will not secure us against 
temptation to-day. The food that nourished us 
yesterday does not meet the physical demands of 
to-day. Faith sustains the same relation to a life of 
holiness that the process of respiration does to 
physical life. To cease from breathing is to die. To 
cease from the constant exercise of faith is to lose 
the life of God from the soul. Hence it is written, 
"The just shall live by faith." 

Faith, then, is the fundamental and essential 
element of all holiness in the creatures of God's 
moral government. "And without faith it is im- 
possible to please him." Therefore in providing for 
the restoration of fallen humanity to its forfeited 
estate, God saw that the only plan of salvation by 
which man could be reharmonized with the princi- 
ples of divine government was that of salvation by 
faith. Accordingly the whole plan of redemption is 
thus arranged. Hence it is written, "Now to him 
that worketh not, but belie veth on him that justifleth 
the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for right- 



68 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

eousness" (Eom. 4:5). The word of God likewise 
teaches that we are 'justified by faith," "sanctified by 
faith," "saved by faith," "kept by faith"; and that to 
gain eternal life we must "live by faith," "walk by 
faith," hold fast the profession of our faith, and 
finally that "This is the victory that overcometh the 
world, even our faith." Thus we see that faith is 
essential to holiness just as a foundation is essential 
to a perfect and permanent superstructure, or just as 
respiration is necessary to physical life. Hence a 
holy life is emphatically a life of faith. This accords 
with Paul's declaration: "The life that I now live, 
I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
and gave himself for me." Such is the relation of 
faith to holiness, considered either as a moral con- 
dition or as applied to moral action. 

Since without faith it is impossible to please God, 
it follows that holiness can be retained only by a 
momentary or habitual exercise of faith. The 
instant we distrust God we displease him and bring 
darkness on our own hearts. Nor can any works 
which we may do be pleasing to him only as 
they spring from faith and are wrought with a single 
eye to glorify his name. The whole superstructure 
of Christian character, therefore, is built upon faith 
in God. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness 
[liberty] to enter into the holiest by the blood of 
Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath con- 
secrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his 



FAITH AND HOLINESS. 69 

flesh; and having a high priest over the house of God; 
let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance 
of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water' 
(Heb. 10:19-22). 

REV. WILSON T. HOGG, 
Editor of the Free Methodist. 



FBTJITS OF HOLINESS. 

The word "fruit" is from the Latin verb fruor 
which means "to enjoy;" and hence, in its primary 
sense it has been defined as "Whatever is produced 
for the enjoyment of man or animals by the processes 
of vegetable growth." But the term is frequently 
used metaphorically especially in the Bible, in which 
sense it is defined as "The result, consequence, or 
effect of anything, whether beneficial or otherwise." 
Jesus attached a good deal of importance to the fruit 
of the life as an index of the character. When warn- 
ing his disciples against false prophets he said, "Ye 
shall know them by their fruits." John the Baptist 
called for "fruits meet for repentance," while Paul 
desired the church to have "fruit unto holiness". 

In a very important sense the fruit that springs 
from the heart and life of every Christian, regardless 
of the state of grace that may be enjoyed, is the spirit 
of holiness. The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of 
holiness, and Paul says, "The fruit of the Spirit is 
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5:22,23). But, 
while every Christian has the fruit of the Spirit, it 
remains for those who are wholly sanctified, and who 
are growing in grace, to "bring forth," "with patience, 
the peculiar fruit that God designs his children to 
produce. If the fruit is "unto holiness" there must 
exist a holy heart, and if fruit is brought forth to 

70 



FRUITS OF HOLINESS. 71 

"perfection" it will take "patience". Fruit is also 
denned as "The ultimate product or result of a 
growth or development." The one who does not 
grow spiritually will be barren and unfruitful. The 
Christian graces enumerated by Peter (2 Peter 1:5-7) 
must be abounding in us, if we would be fruitful in 
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if this 
condition of soul exists— "if these things be in you 
and abound"— if we are "made free from sin," then 
the fruits of holiness will spring forth spontaneously. 
They will be natural and easy and there will be noth- 
ing hard or difficult about their production. "A good 
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit." It will not be 
difficult to show to the world that we love God with 
"all the heart" when his love has been "shed abroad" 
in the heart "by the Holy Ghost". 

The fruit of holiness is of a superior quality. 
God's people do not produce poor, worm-eaten, sour 
fruit. There is nothing second-class about holiness, 
and its effects upon a community are always benefi- 
cent. The wisdom that cometh from above is "full 
of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
without hypocrisy" (Jas. 3: 17). Holiness is intensely 
practical. It works, it labors, it toils for others. It 
is self -forgetful, doing good and forgetting it and 
going on to accomplish greater good. It is "easy to 
be entreated" and is not stubborn or self-willed. In 
the inner life of the one entirely sanctified there will, 
under all circumstances, be proper emotions and feel- 



72 A SYMPOSIUM OX HOLINESS. 

ings. In persecution and trial, as well as in the midst 
of sunshine and blessing, there will be an unruffled 
peace, a constant flow of joy, and a love for all man- 
kind — even our enemies — which is unbroken. All the 
manifestations of the life will be in harmony with 
God and his truth. "The fruit of the Spirit is in all 
goodness, and righteousness and truth" (Eph. 5:9). 

The fruit that springs from a holy heart will be in 
abundance and without cessation. Jesus said to his 
disciples, "Herein is my Father gloritied that ye bear 
much fruit" (Jno. 15:8); and "the tree of life,'' which 
stood by the river that proceeded out of the throne of 
God (Rev. 22:1, 2), "yielded her fruit every month''. 
In like manner it is the privilege of God's people not 
only to produce "much'' fruit, but to have a constant 
yield "every month," all the year through* It is not 
enough occasionally to perform good deeds. God 
wants every action right and all the manifestations of 
the life in harmony with his will. Paul desired the 
Colossian brethren to be "fruitful in every good 
work," and to the Corinthians he used language quite 
similar, stating that God was able to make them 
"abound to every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8). It is the 
privilege of every one to have the "hundred fold" 
yield. "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing 
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoic- 
ing, bringing his sheaves with him" (Psa. 126:6), 

The fruit of holiness is of a lasting nature. It has 
in it the elements of hardiness and endurance. The 



FRUITS OF HOLINESS. 73 

disciples were to have fruit that should remain ( Jno. 
15:16). Hard winters and spring frosts will not 
injure it, and droughts or floods will have no effect 
upon it. Trials and afflictions only assist in matur- 
ing and enlarging the yield. Satan will use every 
effort to destroy all that is destructible, but a life 
bedded in holiness cannot be destroyed. The influ- 
ence of such a life will never end, and the fruit pro- 
duced will keep on multiplying as long as time shall 
last. We should consider well the great privilege we 
enjoy in being able to magnify Christ and garner 
sheaves for eternal life, thus erecting for ourselves a 
memorial far more lasting and precious than any 
granite of earth; for "They that be wise shall shine 
as the brightness of the firmament; and they that 
turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and 
ever" (Dan. 12:3). 

Let us remember that it is impossible not to bring 
forth fruit of some kind. To be spiritually barren is 
to be carnally fruitful, and the consequences of such 
a course will be most terrible. God has a right to 
expect and require a bounteous yield of good fruit 
from the life of every one; and it is sad indeed to 
think of appearing at the judgment with "nothing 
but leaves". God grant that all who read these lines 
may have their "fruit unto holiness, and the end ever- 
lasting life" (Eom. 6:22). 

REV. W. JB. OLMSTEAD, 

Of the Ohio Conference. 



PROFESSING HOLINESS. 

In considering the subject of holiness it is to be 
constantly remembered that entire sanctification is a 
part, the crowning part if you choose, of God's great 
work of salvation; but it is not a work of grace that 
can be separated from the work of salvation. Hence 
much that is said of the necessity of securing, retain- 
ing, or professing this manifestation of God's power 
to save, will apply with equal force to other stages of 
the work of salvation. Holiness is the logical and 
scriptural sequence of justification. If it is reason- 
able to believe that God would forgive and save a 
man from the guilt of sin, I hold it to be more reason- 
able to believe that he will save him from thepowec 
and dominion of inbred sin, which is the parent 
source of that guilt, to save humanity from which 
the Son of God himself must come to Calvary. 

1. Professing holiness is obligatory on the part of 
all who experience it. The convert tells of his sal- 
vation, first, that the world of sinners may know 
that there is the power and willingness in God to 
pardon the guilt of past offenses, and that knowing 
this the unsaved may be led by an awakened hope to 
repent of their sins and seek salvation. For the 
same reason one who is wholly sanctified should 
witness to the church and the world the willingness 
and power of God to save from the inbeing of sin, to 
cleanse the heart from all unrighteousness, so that 

74 



PROFESSING HOLINESS. 75 

those who are struggling with evil dispositions, with 
envyings, with anger and with the roots of bitterness 
may know there is power in Israel's God not only to 
give the victory over these evil dispositions, but so to 
fill their hearts with the presence of the Holy Spirit 
that their very being shall be so transformed that 
they will love as naturally, because of the heaven- 
born love reigning in them, as the child breathes. 
Thus by their testimony others will be led into a life 
of self-abandonment and trust in the divine grace 
into which they might not otherwise come from lack 
of light. 

As it is the duty of witnesses to tell not only the 
truth but the whole truth, so he who holds back his 
word of testimony to the full power of God as he has 
experienced it becomes an unfaithful witness to the 
extent that he does hold back; and if we are not 
faithful to God how can we expect to continue in the 
divine favor to the extent of enjoying the cleansing 
power of the Holy Spirit ? In fact a testimony to 
the power of God to cleanse from sin is necessary for 
the continued enjoyment of this power, inasmuch as 
it is both the witness and the expression of the soul's 
sincerity and fidelity to God. 

The convert tells of salvation, second, that God 
may be glorified, as the changed manner of life is 
ascribed to the power of regenerating grace. So those 
who have been purified by the Holy Spirit and have 
been so transformed that perfect love reigns in their 



76 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

hearts owe it to God, as a matter of honesty, that 
they ascribe the dominion of heavenly tempers in 
them to his grace, lest others think that it proceeds 
from favoring circumstances, the absence of trials, 
the happiness of their surroundings, or from a nat- 
urally good disposition. We are told that our God is 
a jealous God, and when the Israelites were about to 
enter Canaan they were instructed in Deuteronomy 
twenty-sixth chapter, that after they had come into 
the land they should take of the first fruits of the 
earth in a basket and go unto the priest and make 
formal profession before him saying, "I profess this 
day unto the Lord thy God that I am come unto the 
country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to 
give us." Every argument that can be advanced 
against the profession of holiness can, it seems to me, 
be refuted by a consideration of this commandment. 
Why should God want them to go before the priest 
and make a profession of a fact that was so clear to 
everyone? They knew they were in the land, for 
they had suffered much to get there. tTotfknewit, 
for he had endured much in bringing them there: 
and their neighbors certainly knew it, for they had 
suffered much at their hands in coming there. So 
it was necessary neither for the information of 
their neighbors nor for the instruction of God, that 
they should make such a profession. Why then was 
it required? JSecause God chose this simple method 
pf bringing them to witness to his great faithfulness 



PROFESSING HOLINESS. 77 

and power. They were his witnesses, formal wit- 
nesses, that God had fulfilled his promises; and thus 
their own testimony would stand as a lasting rebuke 
to any thing like unbelief on their part. So again we 
see that the profession of holiness is desirable and 
necessary that the w x ords of our own mouth may 
stand not only as a monument of God's grace, but as 
a barrier to the incoming of unbelief or doubt, in the 
moment of trial, as to the power and willingness of 
God to work out for us a great salvation. 

2. But if the fact of making a verbal profession of 
the power of God's grace in us is important, the 
manner in which such profession is made is no less 
important. The end of all such profession is, that 
God may be glorified in the salvation of others. This 
end must be held in view constantly, else the very end 
will be defeated. A flippant manner will bring con- 
viction to none. Whatever serves to exalt self will 
answer no good purpose. The confession of a nat- 
urally depraved nature and an acknowledgment of 
God's power to transform what was naturally 
repulsive may lead some to fresh hopes and courage. 
It will do more to aid souls into light than glib 
phrases such as we sometimes hear. 

Said a godly man when he was asked why he did 
not more fully proclaim his enjoyment of this grace, 
"It is a great thing to be perfect in love, perfect in 
humility, perfect in submission." A deep sense of 
human unworthiness and God's condescension and 



78 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

marvellous power working in us will conduce to 
faithful testimony, purged of self-satisfaction. .V 
conceited profession or professor makes more 
enemies than friends to the cause, and does more 
harm than good. Kept by divine grace in a spirit of 
humility we may speak without fear of the goodness, 
mercy and power of God. 

BENSON HOWARD ROBERTS, A. J/., 
Principal of A. M. Chesbrough flf< minary. 



"Suppose one had attained to this, would you 
advise him to speak of it ? 

"At first perhaps he would scarce be able to refrain, 
the lire would be so hot within him; his desire to 
declare the loving-kindness of the Lord carrying him 
away like a torrent. But afterward lie might; and 
then it would be advisable not to speak of it to them 
that know not God (it is most likely it would only 
provoke them to contradict and blaspheme); nor to 
others, without some particular reason, without some 
good end in view. Then he should have especial 
care to avoid all appearance 0/ boasting; to speak 
with deepest humility and reverence, giving all the 
glory to God.— Wesley's Christian Perfection, 



RETAINING HOLINESS. 

"And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love to the 

end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, 
even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his 
saints" (1 Thess. 3: 12, 13). 

We must grow or die. This is a law of nature and 
grace. When the tree or plant ceases to grow it be- 
gins to decay. If we would keep from falling we 
must "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." We shall get more or 
lose what we have. The law of the kingdom is to 
"lay up treasure in heaven," so to use our capital that 
it shall increase. 

Turning to 2 Peter 1:4-11, we see that we may not 
only once have been enabled to grasp these exceeding 
great and precious promises, but, by adding virtue to 
virtue, grace to grace, thus making our calling and 
election sure, w T e may be kept from falling, and so 
gain an abundant entrance into the everlasting king- 
dom of our Lord. If we grow it will be because our 
spiritual nature has food adapted to it and in suffi- 
cient quantity. Certainly those who have attained to 
perfect love can no longer flourish on milk alone, but 
must have meat in order to grow strong. The truth 
as declared by God's servants, good reading of various 
kinds, but above all the study of God's word and 
waiting on God in prayer are means of growth. "Let 
the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." 

"If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we 
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of 



80 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 Jno. 
1:7). Both these verbs, "walk" and "cleanseth," are 
in the present tense. The important question is not 
whether once we had the experience of holiness, but 
does the blood of Jesus cleanse now ? This is condi- 
tioned on walking in the light. The light grows 
brighter, day by day. The way of self-denial, sacri- 
fice and service becomes clearer as we walk with God 
in purity of heart. AVe cannot go backward. It is 
always forward and upward. Gladly receiving light 
from any source God may be pleased to give, we must 
be committed to walk in it, depending on him for the 
needed grace. Every day, every hour, walking in the 
light of God we shall have the sweet fellowship prom- 
ised, and shall find in our hearts the blessed witness 
that his blood cleanseth from all sin. 

"If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my 
love" (Jno. 15:10), teaches in substance the same truth 
as above. For surely abiding in Jesus' love is "per- 
fect love/' and keeping God's commandments is iden- 
tical with walking in the light. The Holy Ghost, 
through whose indwelling the heart is kept clean, is 
given "to them that obey him." There can be no 
sanctification, no progress in the spiritual life unless 
there be a constant yielding to God and a perfect 
acquiescence in all his known will. 

Again, 1 Peter 1:5, teaches us that we are "kept by 
the power of God." While we must walk in the light 
and obey God's commandments we should never for- 



RETAINING HOLINESS. 81 

get that we are utterly unable to keep ourselves. It 
is the "power of God" that saves, that keeps. We 
cannot for one moment keep ourselves. God must do 
it all. Christ in us is made unto us "wisdom, right- 
eousness, sanctification and redemption." Would it 
not help many if they would think more of him, the 
Sanctifier, and having received him into their hearts, 
always recognize him as abiding there and as suffi- 
cient for all things ? 

Kept by the power of God, through faith. Nothing 
is received, nothing retained except through faith. It 
is faith that brings us near to God, faith that accepts 
the promises and makes them real, faith that enables 
one to get under the blood and to live in the fountain. 
All through faith! That soul that believes God, 
trusts him for all, walking in the light and keeping 
his commandments, shall be kept and presented 
blameless to the Father by the Savior at his coming. 

It is conceded by those who are living in holiness 
that direct testimony is essential to the retaining of 
this experience. Paul commended Timothy for hav- 
ing made a good profession, and we read in Revela- 
tion, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb 
and the word of their testimony." The fact that so 
many have lost this grace by not testifying should 
tend to make one realize the importance of testimony. 

In "Glimpses of Fifty Years" Frances E. Willard 
relates how she sought and obtained holiness, and 
was walking in the light of it when she was called to 



82 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS, 

Lima Seminary in Western New York. After her 
arrival she was told by a minister in whom she had 
confidence and to whom she had related her experi- 
ence, that it was good, but it would do much harm 
for her to profess it in that place, as certain people 
(referring to early Free Methodists) who were fanat- 
ical had rendered it unpopular. She heeded the 
advice, was silent on this subject, and as a result she 
says she lost at that time the witness and power of 
holiness. 

God commands us to speak of his wondrous works 
and to declare his glory and his great might. It 
seems only natural and right that to God should be 
given the glory of his wondrous works of grace as 
well as his other mighty acts. 

The following passages — 1 Tim. f>:14; 1 Thess. 3: 12, 
13; 1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Pet. 3:11-14; 1 Jno. 2:28 and 1 
Jno. 3:2, 3— show the relation of this subject to the 
Second Coming of our Lord. If we are looking for 
our Savior to come, how natural that it should in- 
crease in our hearts the desire to be always holy so as 
to be always ready. How much more dillicult for the 
cares of the world to come in to choke the seed if one 
lives in constant expectation of the returning Master! 
How much less likely that the love of riches or the 
pride of life should creep in unawares if one expects 
so soon to be called to give an account of the entrust- 
ed talents! A hearty reception of the full truth as it 
is in Christ Jesus will greatly help one to retain, in 



RETAINING HOLINESS. 83 

and through Christ, that holiness which will render 
the possessor unashamed before the Lord when he 
shall come to judge and reward his servants. 

MRS. EMMA SELLEW ROBERTS, A. M. y 
Associate Principal A. M. Chesbrough Seminary. 



"There is no Christian duty that has not been 
abused by inconsiderate, rash and weak minds. The 
same is true in the profession of justification. It can 
not be expected that the profession of holiness will 
be free from exhibitions of human frailty. The 
world is full of uncultivated, careless, rash, incon- 
siderate and impetuous men, and the profession of 
holiness, like all other Christian duties, is liable^to 
abuse from them. Unwise professions of holiness, 
however, argue no more against its profession, than 
the abuse of prayer argues against the duty of 
prayer. 

"There are some who profess holiness carelessly, 
and use objectionable and unguarded terms. These, 
in most cases, are those whose lives and spirit pre- 
sent but a sorry idea of Christian holiness. Such 
persons sometimes say, 'I am perfect,' 'I am pure,' *I 
have not committed a sin for so long.' These things 
ought to be true, and may be true; but their careless 
utterance by some of the professed friends of holi- 
ness has done much to injure this precious doctrine, 
and bring its profession into disrepute. It was so in 
Mr. Wesley's day, and it is so in our day." 

— Wood's Perfect Love. 



HOLINESS AS A STATE OF CHKISTIAN 
PEKFECTION. 

Christianity being a life, it touches every part of 
our being, redeems each power, quickens all energies, 
and sanctifies every emotion. Mr. Wesley called 
Christian perfection the "second blessing," but did 
not teach that it was no more than a great blessing. 
As a synonym the term "second blessing" is mislead- 
ing. Our feelings are not a reliable criterion by which 
to judge our spiritual standing. They necessarily va- 
riate, but the work wrought will remain. The emo- 
tions are manifold, while the state is one, and perma- 
nent. Selfishly to seek entire sanctiiication for the 
joy there is in it denotes the lack of pungent convic- 
tion, and results in superficiality and instability. 
Neither is pleasure nor the faculty by which we expe- 
rience pleasure the supreme end of the Christian life. 
Some try to conjure themselves into special and ideal 
moods, instead of simply and bravely relying upon 
God's unshakable promises. Our emotions when 
sanctified have their legitimate place, but it is the 
condition of the heart that forms character, expresses 
person, and determines the immortal destiny of man. 

We should distinguish between holiness as a state 
and the fruit of holiness, even as we would distin- 
guish between the Holy Spirit and the "diversities of 
gifts" (1 Cor. 12:4), or between the Spirit and the 
"fruit of the Spirit' (Gal. 5:22, 23), or, again, between 

84 



HOLINESS AS A STATE. 85 

being "partakers of the divine nature" and the posses- 
sion of the graces which are to be "added to our faith" 
(2 Peter 1:4-7). In each of the above instances there 
is a distinction, but in no instance are the state and 
fruit separable. As a state Christian perfection de- 
notes a pure heart filled with perfect love; the abid- 
ing presence of the Comforter; delight in and oneness 
with the will of God; moral soundness, health, 
strength, stability, manhood. Hence it is a state of 
comparative maturity plus ultra. 

The New Testament conception of Christian per- 
fection is emphatic manliness: it is holy, puissant, 
self -centered, dauntless character. As an experience 
of consciousness it is characterized by changes; but 
as a state of moral purity and power it never fluctu- 
ates while the soul abides in Christ. The mental 
knowledge of our internal state is not always equally 
clear. There are physical, mental, and providential, 
as well as spiritual causes for the alternation of our 
sensibilities. Our space will not permit us to elabo- 
rate. There are periods when the emotions which 
accompany the Spirit are more vivid to the conscious- 
ness even of those who abide in Christ, than at other 
times. Thus under fresh illuminations of the Spirit 
joy may abound, and then again the soul will assume 
a more quiescent state. These fresh illuminations 
and unf oldings of the Spirit do not necessarily indi- 
cate that we have received a fresh baptism of the 
Spirit, nor that we need one when the soul assumes a 



86 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

state of quiet. Our love for and faith in God are no 
more to be estimated by such fluctuating tests than 
are our earthly loves and friendships. Spiritual ecsta- 
sies are mutable, while purity, love and faith may 
abide with an ever deepening tide, whether the flow 
be calm or excited, enabling us to abide in Christ and 
retain in ourselves the abiding of the Holy Spirit. 

They who guage their spiritual condition by their 
feelings are never quite sure of their whereabouts. 
The human life of Jesus, because of the conditions to 
which he subjected himself, was subject to many 
emotions, yet he laid no emphasis upon them. He 
was as pure when depressed as when exultant; when 
in the garden as when in the glory of the transfigura- 
tion. He never referred to these varied experiences 
as indicating any change in his character, or as effect- 
ing the great principle of his life. The important 
question is not, "How do you feel"? but 'Is thine 
heart right"? 

The design of grace is so to form the soul anew in 
holiness that immorality will be unnatural and prac- 
tically impossible. The will of God and the ethical 
purpose of Scripture is, "the man of God," "a char- 
acter with sinew of strength, rnd countenance of 
purity and courage." "All Scripture is given by inspi- 
ration of God that the man of God may be perfect." 
Permit me to give two illustrations, one of the per- 
manency and the other of the solidity of this state, 
from the unadulterated Greek, which reveals the doc- 



HOLINESS AS A STATE. 87 

trine of Christian perfection clearer than the English 
version. In Matthew 11:28-30, the first word trans- 
lated "rest" is anapauo, a verb which signifies "to 
refresh"; the second is anajpausin, a noun signifying 
"a resting place." After being refreshed by the assur- 
ance of pardon and divine acceptance, which is the 
first rest, the convert should push right on, take the 
yoke and learn of Christ until the place or state of 
permanent repose is discovered, which is Jesus Christ, 
and there perpetually abide, undisturbed by the vicis- 
situdes and turmoils of life. The second rest is to be 
immovable and lasting. 

11 Let us all in thee inherit, 

Let us find that second rest." 

Again, Jesus said to Peter, "I say unto thee that 
thou art Peter" {Petros, a piece of rock), a name de- 
noting the solidity of his ultimate character. After 
Pentecost he was a rock-man. Furthermore, through 
the reiterated smoothing and coloring of scene and 
sympathy divine, through the play and power of light 
and righteousness we may become, like Peter, not 
only a piece of rock, but "lively stones" (1 Peter 2:5); 
not stones just taken out of the quarry, natural rock, 
but litlios — the stone shaped, polished, ready for the 
building, of which Christ is the "chief corner stone" 
(Ilthos). Being "made perfect in love" we are to be 
"kept," "established/ 1 "settled," "rooted and ground- 
ed" therein. 

There is opportunity for progress in the state of 



88 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

holiness. He that abides in Christ will have increas- 
ing perceptivity of mind in regard to spiritual things, 
increasing strength and stability, deepening experi- 
ences and enlargement of capacity. And while this 
glorious state is to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit, yet 
let us not forget that the "principle of virtue im- 
proved into a habit" {Butler)— & law unrepealed under 
grace which powerfully affects mind and body— has 
much to do (under the influence of the Spirit) with 
our establishment in holiness. Constant exercise in 
faith, prayer, watchfulness, holy meditation, and in 
the practice of Christian virtues tends to the forma- 
tion of holy habits and to a fixed state of moral puri- 
ty. Some are ever shifting, restless and inconstant, 
but "they that trust in the Lord shall be as mount 
Zion which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.' 
Then trust not in your emotions, nor in circum- 
stances; these may disappoint To trust in the Lord is 
sanctified common sense. Repose in Cod. Behold 
the image of eternal steadfastness! the .Mount 
which "sits to eternity," grappling with its rocky roots 
the earth's center; piercing with its highest pinnacle 
the furthest blue; which no storm can quiver, no 
earthquake shatter; changelessly uttering the change- 
less testimony, that faith in God is a settling and 
establishing virtue; that temptations and persecu- 
tions may menace, yet, believing, we are safe, in life, 
in death, and in eternity. 
Blessed indeed is he who co-operates with God in 



HOLINESS AS A STATE. 89 

making of himself "one new man." God the Father 
formed us; God the Son redeemed us; God the Holy 
Ghost regenerates and sanctifies us; manifold minis- 
tries test and develop us; and all to the end that we 
may "come unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 

REV. DUANE C. J0HN80N, 
Of the Susquehanna Conference. 



PEKFECTING HOLINESS. 

God made man holy at his creation. Sin entered 
and marred the handiwork of God. The Lord did 
not, on that account, abandon the work of his own 
creation, but determined to defeat and destroy the 
work of the devil, and through redemption to bring 
forth in man the ideal character in which he was 
originally made, namely, "righteousness and true 
holiness". Not until our sanctification is entire, our 
holiness complete, therefore, will Jesus Christ "see [in 
us] the travail of his soul, and be satisfied". He has 
made provision to restore us to holiness. We are 
responsible for appropriating the provision he has 
made. Hence the admonition, based on exceeding 
great and precious promises, to "cleanse ourselves 
from all filthiness of the ilesh and spirit, perfecting 
holiness in the fear of God." 

The words, "perfecting holiness," may be under- 
stood to mean, completing your sanctifloation. By 
the work of cleansing. here enjoined upon us our holi- 
ness will be made perfect. This is God's will con- 
cerning us. Yet many are afraid of this term perfect 
when applied to Christian character. They will throw 
up their hands in holy horror at the statement that 
a Christian may be made "perfect and complete in 
all the will of God," though the Bible positively 
enjoins it. 

Doubtless some misapprehend the term, and sup- 

90 



PEKFECTING HOLINESS. 91 

pose that to be a perfect Christian is to be equal to 
God himself. But the term is used in other senses 
than to denote absolute perfection. I call your atten- 
tion to a violet, and tell you to "behold a perfect 
flower". You reply, "Sir, that flower is not perfect." 
I ask you, "Why not ?" You begin to compare that 
tiny flower with a stately oak, and then remark to me, 
"Sir, that flower is not perfect; it is so much smaller 
than yonder oak that I cannot believe it is perfect/' 
The plain answer would be, "The perfection of the 
flower is to be judged by a different standard from 
the perfection of the tree. It is not the nature of 
the violet to grow to such a stature and magnitude 
as the oak." Again, I point you to a horse, and 
say, "There is a perfect horse." You reply, "Im- 
possible. That horse cannot talk, nor sing, nor rea- 
son, nor do many other things which a man can do. 
It cannot, then, be a perfect horse." I would have 
simply to remind you that the standards of perfection 
for the man and for the horse differ; and that the 
perfection of the horse is limited by the nature of the 
animal. I speak again of a Christian as being a 
perfect Christian and some one is ready to say, 
"What! Can he create a universe? Can he speak a 
world from naught ? If he is perfect he must be 
Dossessed of all the attributes of Deity." I would 
answer, "Not so; to be a perfect Christian is to be 
perfect in that only which constitutes one a Christian. 
It is not to possess the perfections of Deity, nor to be 



92 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

perfect angels; but simply to be perfect in Christian 
character — "perfect and complete in all the will of 
God." This is the perfection or perfecting of holi- 
ness which is enjoined upon us in the scriptures. 
Our holiness is begun in regeneration; it is completed 
when we are wholly sanctified. 

There is a sense, however, in which "perfecting 
holiness'' should characterize the sanctified believer 
after the work of cleansing has been made complete; 
that is, in the development and maturing of all the 
Christian graces. Sanctification brings the soul into 
the best possible condition for growth in grace and 
for the development of the fruits of the Spirit. 
Growth should then be rapid. The soul's powers 
should expand, and the character and life should con- 
stantly exhibit an increasing conformity to the per- 
fect model furnished by Jesus Christ. 

The sanctified soul should also be constantly per- 
f ecting the manifestation of holiness. Many things 
render the manifestation of holiness quite imperfect 
in those who are wholly sanctified. Difference in 
temperament will effect a difference in the maniiv 
ation of spiritual life in two individuals equally holy. 
William Cowper was naturally despondent, and sub- 
ject to attacks of melancholy. Some have charged it 
upon religion that he was so often and so greatly 
depressed. That is a sad mistake. Doubtless his 
religion was all that kept him from desperation and 
self-destruction at times. Cowper had grace, but 



PERFECTING HOLINESS. 93 

grace did not change his physical temperament. 
There is a wide scope for Christians to exercise char- 
ity for one another on account of their differences in 
this respect. Some would naturally be light, buoy- 
ant and cheerful, even without saving grace; while 
others, with a high degree of spirituality, are of a 
turn of mind bordering on melancholy. Ve should 
beware of judging one another in these matters. 

A man may be constitutionally quick, excitable, 
percussion-like. Let him experience entire sanctifi- 
cation, and it will not remold his constitution so as to 
make him like that other man who is so constituted 
that it would require something like an earthquake 
to startle him. After all sin is gone from his heart 
his constitutional peculiarity may remain, often lead- 
ing others to misjudge him, and hindering the mani- 
festation of God's work within him. Sanctification 
does not correct all the constitutional defects and 
infirmities in a day, nor in a year. The experience of 
sanctification, however, if retained, will gradually 
bring one to see the things that eclipse the manifesta- 
tion of God's grace in his life, and enable him to over- 
come them. The manifestation of holiness will thus 
become more perfect by far after a score of years 
have been passed in the experience, than at the soul's 
first entrance into this blessed state. 

REV. WILSON T. HOGG, 

Editor of The Free Methodist 



HOLINESS AND THE MINISTRY. 

The foundation of influence and success in min- 
isterial service is in the piety and spirituality of the 
ministry. Next to a divine call to the work, there- 
fore, eminent piety is the most important qualifica- 
tion for the ministerial oftice. We say eminent 
piety, because ordinary religiousness will not meet 
the demand. Only superior spirituality and devotion 
can qualify one for such a holy calling. 

Such are the nature and design of the ministerial 
office with its manifold duties that the Christian min- 
ister is regarded as pre-eminently a sacred man in 
society. lie is looked up to as a model of moral 
excellence, and as one qualified by his own experi- 
ence to lead his flock to exalted attainments in 
holiness. The people he serves have an unquestioned 
right, also, to expect in him a living example of that 
"holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." 
Moreover, the peculiar duties and responsibilities of 
his office are such as none but a holy man can 
adequately meet and fulfil. No man is prepared to 
go in and out before the flock of (Jod as he should In 
the capacity of a Christian minister unless he can 
appeal to them as St. Paul did to the Thessalonian 
Christians when he said, -Ye are witnesses, and Qod 
also, how holily and justly and unblameably we 
behaved ourselves among you that believe" (1 Thes. 
2:10). 

9* 




REV WII.SOX THOMAS HOGG. 



HOLINESS AND THE MINISTKY. 95 

The peculiar temptations incident to the work of 
the ministry also make it incumbent upon those who 
serve in the sacred office to be pre-eminently spiritual. 
"Nothing but the power and dominion of grace in a 
pure heart," says Bev. J. A. Wood, "can save any 
man from being affected in his ministerial work by 
his pocket-book, his reputation, or the frowns, the 
smiles, or the praise of men. It requires a pure 
heart and perfect love to be dead to all these things 
and to keep our 'eye single/ and our 'whole body full 
of light.' " There are other and grosser though 
subtler forms of temptation, too, to which the min- 
ister is liable. They are met on the one hand in the 
discharge of those duties which sometimes necessitate 
his being made a confidant in matters of a private 
and delicate character; while on the other hand they 
may steal upon him undei the plausible idea of 
cultivating spiritual communion. In either case the 
tendency is the same, namely, to occasion "turning 
the grace of God into lasciviousness." Into these 
snares many a once devoted and useful minister has 
been unwittingly drawn, thereby "making shipwreck 
of faith and a good conscience,'' and bringing 
reproach and disgrace upon the church of God. The 
best security against all those subtle and powerful 
temptations peculiar to the ministerial office is that 
of a pure heart — an experience of inward holiness. 
Above all others the Christian minister has need to 
"Put on the whole armor of God, that he may be able 
to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11). 



96 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

Conversion alone is not adequate to produce that 
depth, richness, fulness, and stability of Christian 
experience necessary to qualify one for the work of 
the ministry. In order to make full proof of his 
ministry the man who is called to this work should 
be wholly sanctified. We would not in any wise 
speak disparagingly of justification or of regenera- 
tion. To be born of God is a wonderful experience, 
and of itself makes one holy to the extent of impart- 
ing to his heart holy principles and giving them 
dominion over his life. This is not all that is 
included in holiness, however. It is holiness begun, 
but not holiness completed. Regeneration makes 
one a partaker of spiritual life; sanctiticution removes 
from the heart those native tendencies to sin 
which antagonize the development and full mani- 
festation of that life. Regeneration gives power 
over inbred sin, and ability to conform the heart 
and life to the commands and precepts of the gos- 
pel; sanctification purifies or empties the heart of 
the principle of inbred sin, and prepares it for the 
personal, permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 
Regeneration gives principles of holiness the ascend- 
ency over all carnal tendencies of the heart; sanc- 
tification annihilates those tendencies, swallowing 
up all carnal affections and dispositions in pure 
and perfect love, and leaving holiness to reign un- 
rivalled and alone. To bring men into such a state 
as this is the grand aim of the gospel in all its pro- 



HOLINESS AND THE MINISTRY. 97 

visions, r^romises, instructions and various ministries. 
How all-essential, then, that they who assume the 
responsibilities of the gospel ministry should be "holy 
men of God!" How necessary that they should be 
"pure in heart*' and "perfect in love", as well as ex- 
emplary in outward life. How otherwise can they 
lead believers into that holiness which alone makes 
meet for efficient service on earth and for final admis- 
sion into heaven ? 

Holiness is the chief element of success in the 
work of the ministry. It ranks above talents, learn- 
ing, favorable circumstances, skilful management 
and ability in pulpit preparation and delivery. 
"Without it the minister can neither live, nor preach, 
nor labor as he should. There is a clearness, a 
strength, a fulness, an energy needed in the sacred 
office impossible without entire holiness. It would 
be infinitely better for the church and the world, if 
every partially sanctified minister would suspend all 
effort in other directions till, 'with strong crying and 
tears,' he receive the cleansing baptism of the Holy 
Ghost." — Wood's Perfect Love. "A thousand times 
as much stress ought to be laid upon this part of 
a thorough preparation for the ministry as has been," 
was President Finney's estimate of the case. 

We can now see why the Savior forbade his chosen 
apostles to enter upon their public ministry until 
they had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
They had been three years under his own instruction; 



98 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

they had been especially instructed in reference to 
their work; and they were assured that their names 
were written in heaven; still there was one indis- 
pensable qualification lacking. They needed to be 
"baptized with the Holy Ghost." Hence the com- 
mand, "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be 
endued with power from on high," and the promise, 
"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you." They tarried, and the promised 
baptism came. Then they were enabled to preach 
the gospel "in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
power," and thousands w T ere converted and added to 
the church in a day as the result. Nothing short of 
this sanctifying baptism is adequate to produce an 
efficient ministry to-day. 

REV. WILSON T. HOGG, 
Editor of The Free Methodist. 



HOLINESS THE POWEB OF THE CHUBCH. 

Holiness, in its perfected character, is that deep and 
rich experience in which all sin is removed from the 
heart, every passion and power of the soul actuated 
by divine love and the entire being filled with the 
Holy Ghost. This, as experienced by individual 
Christians, we affirm to be the power of the church. 

Mr. Webster defines the word power as "Ability to 

act the faculty of doing or performing something 

capability of producing an effect, whether phys- 
ical or moral." The power of the church, then, is her 
faculty or capability of performing the work to which 
God has called her. The work of the church is that 
of saving sinners ; not that of a reformatory. Her mis- 
sion is not to refine the manners of society, nor to 
correct the conduct of the criminal classes, since these 
results will follow in her path of progress as a natu- 
ral consequence; but her watchword is salvation. 
She sounds the tocsin against sin. Her heralds cry, 
"Repent and be converted. Life through Jesus 
Christ. Holiness and heaven.'' The power exercised 
by the church is delegated. It is derived from her 
relation to God, or by her full reception of God's 
presence. This being true, it then stands to reason 
that every element or principle or passion in the church 
which is opposed to the reception of the Holy Spirit 
and which is antagonistic to his operations, must be 
removed if the church would exercise that full power 

99 



100 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

which is essential to the accomplishment of her work. 
In the experience of holiness or entire sanctitication 
this work is accomplished; i.e.,by the destruction of sin. 

Sin opposes God. It is the only principle in regen- 
erate man that antagonizes the Holy Spirit. When it 
can no longer reign it will rage; when dethroned by 
divine grace, it will stir up insurrection in the affec- 
tions, until it is destroyed by the power of the atone- 
ment. "The flesh [sin] lusteth against the Spirit." 
"It is not subject to the law of God.'' It cannot be 
permanently suppressed. There is no law under 
heaven that can successfully regulate it. The Spirit 
is opposed in his leading, despised in his peace, 
rejected in his joy, and disputed in his authority by 
this monster, inbred sin. 

Sin is a weakening element. Neither the intrigues 
of Satan, nor the ingenuity of men, nor the opposition 
of their combined forces can withstand a pure church. 
But an unsanctiiied church is a weak church. To 
arm a giant for battle is useless if he must needs walk 
with a cane and a crutch to war. Sin weakens the 
faith of the church; right in the heat of the conflict, 
fears arise, faith falters and the battle is lost. Sin 
chills the love of the church. We may substitute 
frenzy for fire, clamor for radical doctrines and insist 
on rigid rules of righteousness, but we only beat the 
air unless the soul of the church is fervent with divine 
love. 

Sin is a blinding element. A man is of little use 



POWEE OF THE CHURCH. 101 

in war who cannot tell men from trees walking. A 
clear perception of truth and a right understanding 
of its application are essential in the work of the church 
Obstacles are magnified, difficulties are doubled, dan- 
gers are increased, the face of God is obscured and 
heaven itself is sometimes uncertain when the vision 
of the soul is blurred by sin. 

Sin is a distracting element, "In union there is 
strength" is never more true than when applied to the 
work of the church. The Apostle Paul declared the 
church at Corinth to be "carnar because of their con- 
tention and division over favorite preachers. What 
havoc has been wrought in the church of God by sin 
as a contentious element! The dearest ties have been 
broken, societies severed, circuits divided, conferences 
rent in twain and whole organizations destroyed by 
a few who harbored sin. If the church succeeds she 
must maintain her unity of spirit and harmony of 
effort. If she does this she must insist upon holiness 
of heart in pulpit and pew. 

Though the work of holiness accomplishes the utter 
extermination from the church of all the principles of 
opposition to her progress, this alone does not qualify 
her for her mission. The power of the church is not 
in negatives. A good road-bed and a clear track are 
essential to rapid train transit; but these may exist 
and the engine be dead on the track. The Spirit hav- 
ing accomplished this glorious work, the cleansing of 
the church, he then descends in all his fulness, inspir- 



102 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

ing, quickening and empowering her for her work 
Now clad in armor omnipotent, invincible as her 
divine Master, she goes forth, heedless of earth's flat- 
teries, unmoved by the world's frowns, reckless regard- 
ing her own temporal concerns, "fair as the moon, 
clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with ban- 
ners." This heavenly unction was promised by Jesus 
to the lonely apostles as an enduement of power; and 
though the praying disciples understood not all that 
was contained in "the promise of the Father," they 
tarried until the rushing wind and the tongues of fire 
came which proved to be indeed a baptism of power. 
Superstition and prejudice were swept like chaff before 
the wind. Those whose hands were red with the 
blood of the world's Redeemer, and whose voices had 
so recently clamored for his condemnation, now cried 
in consternation at the fishermen's feet and prayed in 
penitence for mercy. In the presence of opposing 
priests, learned scribes and threatening tetrarchs, the 
disciples, under this baptism of power, soon "filled all 
Jerusalem with their doctrine.'' And from the day 
of this marvelous baptism on the infant church to 
the present time, the elliciency of the church in the 
accomplishment of her work has been in proportion 
to her reception of this heavenly unction. 

History has confirmed, in all ages and nations, that 
the people who have enjoyed and taught the experi- 
ence of Bible holiness, have been the ones who have 
forced their way through ignorance, superstition and 



POWER OF THE CHURCH." 103 

idolatry, and planted the cross of Christ in the midst 
of misery, poverty and sin, and caused the desert to 
blossom as the rose. 

If the church is thus to force her way through the 
fortifications of sin, and in the presence of Apollyon 
demand the liberty of his captives, she must have 
power to withstand the devil. Overtures to Satan are 
never successful. His open assaults, his secret devices, 
and his angels of light, make him a dreaded foe. 
She must also have power to resist the temptations 
of the world. How many moral giants have been 
slain by sin concealed in the soul which opened the 
door to temptation from without! More than one 
Sampson has lost his locks while dozing in Delilah's 
lap. 

Again, she must have power to endure the perse- 
cutions of the world. To reprove the world for its 
sinful conduct and to denounce its carnal pleasures, 
is to incur its severest hatred and most bitter oppo- 
sition. The enduement of power, which the church 
receives at the time of her perfect purification, fully 
qualifies her for this resistance and endurance. The 
aggressive power of the church lies in her ability 
to reach the hearts of men. To move the heart 
of the world, the heart of the church must first 
throb. Holiness creates in the church a consum- 
ing concern for the lost. Her ministers lose their 
second-hand sermons, and revamped discourses and 
break right out from the heart in declarations of 



104 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

truth, born by inspiration, amid the naming affections 
of the soul. Men are more than moderately moved 
by such truths. The agitation is more than mental. 
Daniel Webster said, after hearing a young man 
preach, "That young man is evidently an unscientific 
man, but he has gone to the school of God and knows 
some things of which I am ignorant. I have had my 
intellect entertained by other ministers, but that 
young man has touched my heart/' 

The power of the church is not demonstrated alone 
by a sanctified ministry. There must be harmony 
existing between the character and conduct of the 
church, and the teaching of her pulpits. The testi- 
mony and example of a holy church are sometimes 
more powerful than her pulpits. Many hearts that 
have proven too hard for the pulpit hammer have 
yielded to the tears and testimony of the pew. Others 
who have rejected both sermons and testimonies have 
been forced to their knees by the silent Buffering and 
shining faces of the saints of God, who have died in 
the flames of burning fagots with prayers on their 
lips for their murderers. 

We observe, then, from the foregoing, whether con- 
sidered from the philosophical relations of inbred sin 
to the work of the church, or from the provisions of 
grace and the promise of God; or from the history of 
the church, whether considered in her aggressive atti- 
tude or that of resistance and suffering, that the 
power of the church in the accomplishment of her 
work depends upon her attaining unto the experience 
of entire holiness. REV. F. D. BROOKE, 

Of the Illinois Conference. 



PEEACHING HOLINESS. 

1. Have it. Drink it, inhale it, bathe in it, live in 
it and let it live in you, until you breathe it out as 
naturally as Saul of Tarsus breathed out threatenings 
and slaughter. This is the first, indispensable quali- 
fication for preaching either entire sanctification or 
justification. St. Augustine's "Confessions" have 
stirred the souls of thousands for fifteen centuries 
because of the divine reality in them. Whatever we 
may think of much else in them, we cannot but be 
moved at the account of his mother's years of prayer 
and patience, his wanderings, his ambition, his sins, 
his remorse, his desperate struggle, the strange provi- 
dence that sealed his resolution and his faith, his 
companion joining him, and his mother leaping and 
praising God and not long after joyfully dying, con- 
tent to be buried in a strange land because she felt 
her work was done. The influence of Augustine for 
good has lived until this day because of the divine 
life which entered his soul in that garden in Italy so 
many centuries ago. 

John Tauler lived two hundred years before the 
Keformation, in the period when the Black Death 
smote the world, and during the night of Papal domi- 
nation, but salvation made him a flame of fire. Un- 
der his preaching of three experiences,— nature, grace, 
and the direct shining of the Holy Spirit,— many fell 
strengthless, and Strasburg and Germany were shaken 

105 



106 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

by a power which, through Tauler's writings and oth- 
erwise, is felt through the world to this day. The 
"Imitation of Christ" was written by a Roman Cath- 
olic, long before the days of Luther, but it contains 
an experience that has preached to the world in more 
editions than any other book except the Bible. 

Let us, as far as possible, have sound theology, but 
first let us have the indwelling Christ. Better would 
it be to have the life in God enjoyed by a Thomas £ 
Kempis, even though we believed in transubstantia- 
tion, and the life enjoyed by Bunyan, even though we 
were advocates of Calvin's "horrible decree," than to 
be as clear as crystal in the doctrine of holiness, while 
as cold as ice, or as grasping as Xabal, or as frothy as 
yeast and as unreliable as quicksand. Heal experi- 
ence has a tongue of fire and will almost literally re- 
peat the miracle of Pentecost. Brother Paul,- Ma- 
sazi Murahashi,- who lately left us for Japan, was 
not a fluent speaker in English, and some things in 
Binney's Compend were a puzzle to him; but it was a 
hard heart indeed that would not melt to hear him 
tell of his conversion in Japan, his persecutions, his 
shipwreck, his floating "in middle ocean" holding to a 
plank while the waves rolled over him, and how that 
then, though he had not heard entire sanctification 
preached, he felt he needed before he died the experi- 
ence taught in the hymn he had learned, "Now wash 
me, and I shall be whiter than snow," and how he 
prayed for it and it came so that he waved one hand 
and shouted. 



PKEACHING HOLINESS. 107 

2. Preach it with the Holy Ghost We are sancti- 
fied by the Spirit, and only by his help can effectual 
preaching be done. Without him holiness doctrine and 
profession are as an engine without fire or steam, or a 
body without a soul. We must continually be on our 
guard at this point, for the tendency with ecclesias- 
tical organizations has always been sooner or later 
practically to substitute something else in religion for 
a present, living God. The thing substituted may or 
may not be something good in its own place, but even 
though it were the Jewish temple and its ceremonial, 
or though it should be education, culture, ritualism or 
orthodoxy in holiness, if it is allowed to rob us of the 
baptism and indwelling of the Holy Ghost it has 
accomplished the design of Satan. Daily communion 
with God and repeated incomings of power from on 
high are the only security against apostasy for either 
preacher or people. With this, the weakest are 
strong; without it, the mightiest are broken reeds, 
piercing those who lean upon them. 

3. Preach it in its completeness. It should be set 
forth in all its relations, phases, applications. To do 
this, no cast-iron regulations can be laid down to suit 
every occasion. Much, very much dependence must 
be placed in the Spirit, for direction as to the specific 
thing or things to be emphasized on particular occa- 
sions. Sir William Hamilton is reported to have 
called President Finney the strongest intellect of this 
century, yet Mr. Finney put the utmost stress upon 



108 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

being directed and helped by the Spirit in preaching. 

The preaching of holiness should be as broad and as 
varied as the Bible; hence the ''daily, nightly, and 
everlasting study" of the Bible is indispensable. To 
neglect this for newspapers and current literature will 
prove fatal to real and abiding success. No unvary- 
ing rule as to the mode of studying it can be laid 
down for every one, nor for the same person at all 
times, but the servant of Christ must love his Bible 
more than a novel reader loves a novel, a historian an 
ancient chronicle, or a scientist the book of a master. 
If this love is wanting, it must be sought, obtained 
and cherished. 

4. Read the best books. Spurgeon said that he 
never tired reading the sermons of nun who had been 
eminently successful in winning souls. This was 
one of his habits that will well bear imitation. Spir- 
itual biographies are a power in helping a preacher. 

"The wise new wisdom from the wise acquire, 
And each bold hero lights another's tire." 

Each new acquaintance thus formed is a rich and 
an abiding acquisition and inspiration. There is an 
inexpressible delight in such reading, unspeakably 
above that furnished by any novel, and it benefits the 
reader, makes him more useful, and doubtless gives 
him a foretaste of the closer, wider acquaintanceships 
to be formed in heaven. 

But we must close. The theme is boundless and 
exhaustless. Without continual fellowship with God ? 



PREACHING HOLINESS. 109 

no one is qualified to preach holiness. Of himself no 
one is ever sufficient, but he who knew the secrets of 
the sea of Galilee and who knows the hearts of men 
and all depths, has said: "Follow me, and I will make 
you fishers of men." 

REV. JOHN LA DUE, 
Instructor in Hebrew, Greenville College. 



MEETINGS FOE HOLINESS. 

By meetings for holiness I do not mean holiness 
conventions or camp-meetings, but regular meetings 
in connection with the work of the Lord in the same 
order as class or weekly prayer meetings. It has been 
my privilege to be where they were held with very 
favorable results. 

The first meetings of this kind that I ever attended 
were in connection with my school days. Some of 
the students adopted the plan of having a meeting 
for holiness every Sabbath morning at 5 a. m., in the 
fall and spring terms, and at 5:30 o'clock in the win- 
ter term. The meetings were conducted entirely by 
students. I do not remember any teacher being pres- 
ent during the period of over two years that I was 
there as a student, but the Lord used to mest with us 
and bless us and keep us alive in the midst of spirit- 
ual dearth. 

After my school days were ended and my surround- 
ings changed I used to long for such select meetings 
for believers and seekers, but never found them again 
till we moved to ISinghamton, N. Y. There we 
found that a meeting for holiness was one of the 
established weekly meetings of the church. Monday 
evening was the one set apart for this purpose. It is 
impossible for me to give anything like a correct 
report of the amount of good accomplished at these 

meetings. It was here the tried and tempted believer 

no 



MEETINGS FOE HOLINESS. Ill 

found help. The young converts were made strong 
as they were led on unto perfection, and convicted 
sinners were converted. Sometimes the sick were 
healed in answer to the prayer of faith. It was here 
that the cause of truth and righteousness in Bing- 
hamton was established. Oh, how the blessed Spirit 
was poured out at times upon the humble few who 
took the narrow way from choice! We spent five 
years in Binghamton w T hen my husband was first 
appointed pastor, and some years afterward he served 
two more as pastor and one as district chairman; but 
all this time the Monday evening meeting continued 
with interest and profit, and I do not know but it still 
continues. Thank the Lord for those precious sea- 
sons of refreshing. 

When we left Binghamton for other fields of labor 
we were both better acquainted with God than when 
we went there, and this is saying but little of the 
benefits realized in those Monday night meetings. It 
seemed to me very much like a theological school. 

In the different fields of labor that followed we 
found no meetings for holiness established. My soul 
was often hungry for such seasons with God's people. 
When we came to Dakota, ten years since, we found 
a good degree of interest in the subject of holiness in 
different places, but no meetings established espe- 
ciaily for its promotion. Early morning prayer meet- 
ings were usually held in connection with the camp- 
meetings, the same as in the East, with more or less 



112 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

of divine help. It was not until the fifth year after 
we came here that it was decided by those in author- 
ity that the early prayer meeting should assume a 
definite character, having as its object the promotion 
of scriptural holiness as believed by Wesley and his 
followers. This plan has continued ever smce its 
adoption; and, as the result, the number of witnesses 
to the experience of entire sanctification has been 
largely increased. Praise the Lord. Ever since we 
have been living at Wessington Springs 1 have felt a 
strong desire for an old-type holiness meeting. Some 
have been held, but not regularly until last year, when 
it seemed clear that the time had come to establish 
such meetings. They are now held regularly every 
Sabbath afternoon and are seasons of special blessing 
and profit to those who attend. 

As Free Methodists we profess to believe in entire 
holiness, or sanctification, as a distinct work wrought 
in the soul subsequent to justification. We promised 
when we were received into the Free Methodist 
Church in full connection that, if we were not then in 
the enjoyment of this state, we would seek until we 
found. Have we all kept our vows? Dear reader, 
have you gone on to perfection, and do you now real- 
ize that the blood of Jesus cleanses your heart from 
all unrighteousness? and does the Holy Ghost fill 
your soul ? We must have this grace ourselves, or we 
cannot fulfil our mission, which is to spread script- 
ural holiness over these lands. Much help will be 
realized all through the church, I fuliy believe, by 
having special meetings for holiness. 

31BS. M. H. FREELAND, 
Wessington Springs, 8. D. 



HOLINESS AND REFORMS. 

That godliness is the source of reform passes with- 
out saying among all classes who acknowledge the 
power of Christianity. That sin is the seat of trouble 
is demonstrable. Blunders which have ruined church- 
es, paralyzed business, and destroyed empires may be 
traced to dark original sin more easily than hunters 
would follow the trail of a fox to his lair. For the 
blighting effect of sin is never effaced. How much 
more apparently does deliberate sinning add to this 
fount of pollution, sending forth its pestilential 
streams of selfish interest, from which rise the blight- 
ing miasmas of greed and the lust of power! 

The world is silently witnessing the death struggle 
of Labor with the terrible grip of Capital upon its 
throat. It is the aristocracy of the few triumphing 
over the humanity of the many, — revealing the poor, 
the widow and the fatherless trodden under the iron 
heel of a purely moneyed despotism. To find the 
remedy is easy; successfully to apply it involves the 
principle of holiness. Surely, then, it cannot be done 
by the men of the world who represent the various 
industries. Blinded by selfish interest— the god of 
this world— each makes himself a central sun, regard- 
ing others merely as satellites to revolve about him. 
The history of astronomy affords a striking illustra- 
tion of the only way out of the difficulty. The first 
astronomers, like our average business men, supposed 

113 



114 A SYMPOSIUM OX HOLINESS. 

that this little earth, — really one of the smallest of 
only one small planetary system,— was the center of 
the universe. But somehow their calculations of 
celestial movements, like the bank account of our 
business men who want to be suns, would never come 
out right. Finally one astronomer made a bold depart- 
ure from the theories and philosophies of his prede- 
cessors. Leaving the earth, he took his position by 
the sun. To his astonishment and joy his calcula- 
tions now came out exactly right— especially after 
substituting one of the two foci for a common center. 
Each planet completed its orbit at the very moment 
he had calculated for it. Kepler had found the key 
to astronomical science. The greatness of his discov- 
ery struck him with strange power. The universe 
suddenly appeared so inconceivably grand, its vast- 
ness so great, yet its movements marked by such hair- 
breadth precision, that he sank to the ground over- 
whelmed. There is an eternal Six in our heavens 
the white light of whose shining is his own increate 
essence— no lin i:ss into the LORD. Wherever 
admitted this Light of Life is all-pervading, all-con- 
trolling. The time may be when earth, awaking from 
slumber shall acknowledge his reign as the angels do, 
thus spanning earth and heaven with this bow of prom- 
ise: "In that day shall there be upon the bells of the 
horses, holiness unto the Lord; and the pots in 
the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the 
altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah 



HOLINESS AND REFOBMS. 115 

shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 14: 20, 

21). 

This much-desired time evidently is not yet. Closely 
following the dark reign of injustice and tyranny is 
the prowling monster of open vice. Where is our 
good Anthony Comstock ? and where are his many 
self -proclaimed coadjutors? The air is filled with 
sheets reeking with bawdy pictures. In defiance of 
all honor and decency our buildings and fences are 
placarded with monstrous posters in which the very 
devil seems to be outdoing himself. All this moral 
filth is the natural outgrowth of legalized prostitution. 
William T. Stead, who wrote, "If Christ Came to Chi- 
cago," has been roughly handled, even by good Chris- 
tians, because, as it seems to us, he was about fifty 
years ahead of his time. We believe time wiii dem- 
onstrate that he struck a ringing blow of gospel truth 
against the bulwarks of hell when he declared that 
the vices of the American people largely lay at the 
doors of American churches. Why, there are men in 
Joliet penitentiary to-day for embezzling funds to 
enable their wives and daughters to maintain that 
position in society which they had chosen, and, too, 
within the pale of an orthodox denomination. Fur- 
thermore,— and let not this shock you,— there are 
girls standing this moment behind the curtained pane 
in the many entrance doors to perdition lining Fourth 
avenue, among the comparatively few who failed to 
conceal their sh^me incurred by multitudes for a sim- 



116 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

ilar purpose. A general house-cleaning in the temple 
of God, pushed vigorously on until holiness once 
more flashes forth from the altar behind the vail, 
would accomplish more toward putting down crime 
and prostitution than would all other combined 
agencies. 

Some reforms are threadbare, while others, equally 
or more important, are scarcely touched. We believe 
that the evils of secret, oath-bound societies are not 
sufficiently ventilated by the pulpit and press of this 
country. The abduction and murder of Captain Wil- 
liam Morgan, and the popular agitation that followed, 
causing a general collapse of Freemasonry for more 
than a quarter of a century, are still fresh in the 
minds of the fathers. But time heals all wounds, 
and we are given to understand by the knowing ones 
that the whole thing is a myth springing from the 
.fertile brain of anti-Masons. Before me lies a quarto 
volume of Lippincott's Pronouncing Biographical Dic- 
tionary, brought down to 1887. On page 1 7<;7 we read: 
"Morgan (William), an American mechanic, born in 
Virginia about 1775, removed subsequently to Bata- 
via, New York. In 1826 he was abducted and mur- 
dered by a band of Freemasons for having written a 
book professing to disclose the secrets of their society. 
{See 1 Allen,' 'America nB'myraph leal Dictionary ;' l New 
American Encyclopaedia? 'Gazetteer of the State of 
New York'/ by J. H. French, p. 323.") 

Courts of justice, powerless under the fatal charm 



HOLINESS AND REFORMS. 117 

of the hoodwink and cabletow which more than once 
have paralyzed the executive functions of our very 
government, proclaim Freemasonry to be a stupen- 
dous monopoly of rights and privileges belonging to 
all. By her own minions has it often been shown to 
the world as an institution of organized selfishness. 
To say that any body of men has a more sacred right 
to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" than have 
the rest of mankind is to affirm what every loyal 
American citizen knows to be a lie. Yet this is pre- 
cisely the sort of lying which composes the (ig)"noble" 
structure of Freemasonry. Let anyone doubting this 
statement send ten cents to the National Christian 
Association, 221 West Madison street, Chicago, for 
authorized "light" on the subject. This would be far 
cheaper and far more honorable than to stumble 
blindfolded for "light*' through the horrible Masonic 
labyrinth of blood-curdling oaths and blasphemies. 

Freemasonry is usually selected as the principal 
target of reform guns because she is the recognized 
mother of the numerous brood of secret orders which 
are filling the land. Drive out this mother of villian- 
ies and her progeny must follow. Many hoped that 
the public airing of secret fraternities which Dr. Cro- 
nin's murder furnished the world would disrupt not 
only the infamous Clan-na-Gael but the whole pestif- 
erous brood of secret clans. But secretists were 
taught a lesson by the landslide that struck them 
when they killed Morgan,— and now "all's quiet." A 



118 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

few years hence it may be doubted whether such a 
man as Dr. Cronin ever existed; and people who are 
anxious to know may have to consult our court 
records. 

The feature of secret institutions that most inter- 
ests us at present is their religious character. Who 
has not witnessed the mock solemnities of a Masonic 
funeral and the appalling blasphemy of sending the 
soul of the departed, whether drunkard or knave, to 
the "Grand Lodge above," by upraised hands of the 
fraternity around the open grave at the word of com- 
mand from the "Worshipful Master"? Anyone can 
find further and abundant proofs that Freemasonry is 
a religion from the published works of Masonic 
authorities (Address the N. C. A. as above). As all 
secret orders either directly or indirectly antagonize 
the Bible— the proofs of which abound for those who 
care to know— their religion must be a FALSE one. 
As a matter of fact it constitutes an armament of 
false worship whose forces are consolidated against 
the religion of Jesus Christ. A determined collision 
between the two must inevitably follow; because, on 
the other hand, true religion always aims her artillery 
at false systems. Holiness, therefore, in both its germ 
and fruition, is the mighty God-power to pull down 
this stronghold of Satan. All other agencies of reform 
are futile as compared with this. Indeed, to attempt 
anything in this direction without it were only to beat 
the air. False religion must be conquered by true 



HOLINESS AND BEFORMS. 119 

religion, if conquered at all. The sooner our anti- 
secret reformers discover this truth, and practically 
utilize it, the better will it be for them and for the 
laudable work which they have undertaken. 

The curse of intemperance is too commonly dis- 
tributed among three classes— distillers, venders and 
consumers of ardent spirits. We are prohibitionists, 
but fear we are fighting King Alcohol in the dark. 
Sojourning in Chicago has opened our eyes somewhat. 
"Family beer" wagons may often be seen before the 
well-known residences of church members; and later 
on these same "family beer" wagons and "lager beer" 
wagons may be seen side by side at breweries and 
wholesale beer houses. The same stuff goes into 
both. One goes to the church members, the other to 
the saloons. Chicago is a city not likely to wipe out 
the saloons while her good church-member citizens 
conduct themselves after such a fashion. But she 
can easily do this if she thinks she must. Grade- 
crossings were backed by the mightiest corporations 
on earth,— but Chicago spoke, and, at enormous 
expense, they raised their tracks. Gambling repre- 
sents the supreme interest of some of the heaviest 
capitalists on the continent. As often as Chicago has 
spoken gambling has ceased. So we have reason to 
know that she can, if she will, close every saloon in 
town. And we have reason to further know that if 
every church member in the city did but use his 
utmost influence and vote in that direction Chicago 



120 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

would soon be brought to the point where she would 
be glad to take hold of the saloon business- a n i i 
stop it! To prove this by simple statistical show- 
ings would consume more space than at present is 
allotted to us. 

Where, then, lies the greatest burden of responsi- 
sibility touching the temperance question? The 
manufacturer, the middle man and the vender are 
blinded by their unholy gains. The degree of respon- 
sibility is determined, first, by one's convictions; sec- 
ond, by his freedom to act. In a general sense all 
wrong doers are responsible— the heathen themselves 
being without excuse according to Saint Paul. Put 
greater responsibility attaches to those who sin with 
their eyes wide open— who profess to be serving God 
while serving the world, the flesh and the devil. The 
responsibility of these is of such enormous propor- 
tions as to bury that of others almost out of Bight 
Then the opportunities within one's reach largely 
determine his responsibility. What class now do you 
think is most responsible for the curse of intemper- 
ance? Is it not the church member? He believes, 
at least abstractly, in holiness. Did he enjoy what he 
professes to believe what a general capsize would 
there be in all moral conditions! How quickly would 
the gigantic structure of wrong begin to totter to its 
eternal fall, whose welcome crash would herald the 
oncoming millennium: while true Christianity, "as the 
wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers 



HOLINESS AND REFORMS. 121 

with yellow gold" (Psa. 68:13), would rise, Phoenix- 
like, from the ashes and "pots" among which she has 
so long lain. Lord, hasten the glad hour. Hasten it 
by clothing Zion with her emblem of divine power — 

TRUE HOLINESS. 

REV. CHARLES H. RAWSON, A. M., 

Editor of the Sunday -School Weekly. 



PRACTICAL HOLINESS. 

Among the definitions given in the "Standard Dic- 
tionary'' to the word practical are these: "1. Pertain- 
ing to or governed by actual use and experience as 
contrasted with ideals and speculations 5. Mani- 
fested in practice; &s practical religion. 'The soul of 
religion is the practical part.' Banyan Pilgrim's 
Progress." Viewed in the light of these definitions I 
conclude that "practical holiness" is holiness reduced 
to or manifested in practice. 

Men without grace may touch many points of prac- 
tical godliness; but however moral or well trained in 
the theory of right conduct, without an experimental 
knowledge of God and having never been born of 
the Spirit, they will signally fail in other points. The 
unregenerate heart will manifest its nature some- 
where—and quite probably when one is least aware 
of the manifestation. Similarly the converted man 
may have dominion over sin and his conduct may 
usually appear to run in a line parallel with that of 
the one who has been "sanctified wholly;'' but ever 
and anon he is liable to be surprised into some method 
of procedure or some act which is unholy. The car- 
nal nature is bound to assert itself. In order to man- 
ifest holiness, always, under all circumstances, the 
theory must be realized in experience. The soul must 
reach out beyond accepted theoretical statement and 
belief into a heart experience. This experience is 

the beginning of practical holiness. 

122 



PRACTICAL HOLINESS. 123 

Having been made holy, having professed the grace 
of sanctification, his family, the church, the world, 
and all who mingle with the man expect and have a 
right to expect that his daily life will be a manifesta- 
tion of practical holiness. 

Practical holiness will regulate domestic life. The 
husband who has this experience will find that its 
practical manifestation controls each item of his 
every-day life. His treatment of his wife, his regard 
for her comfort and her wishes and his constant love 
for her will be measured by the apostle's direction, 
"Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved 
the church, and gave himself for it," etc. (Eph. 5: 25-28). 
The rule, "So ought men to love their wives as their 
own bodies," if practiced, would often remodel the 
whole of family life. There is no room here for 
harshness, for coarseness, for sensuality. The one 
who loves his wife as Christ loved the church will be 
a holy man in his home life, and this experience will 
sanctify every relation and phase of the God-ordained 
institution of marriage. It is almost unnecessary to 
state that a like practical manifestation of holiness 
should and will mark the life of the sanctified woman. 
She will be the "virtuous woman" Solomon describes 
"whose price is far above rubies"; she will stretch 
"out her hand to the poor," and reach "forth her 
hands to the needy," and the "heart of her husband" 
may "safely trust in her." From homes in which all 
hearts are thus controlled by practical holiness would 



124 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

spring a race of beings purer, nobler, and more sus- 
ceptible of culture— physical, mental and spiritual— 
than any the world has seen in later years. Practical 
holiness would give to the world children who were 
"well born," capable of grand attainments and des- 
tined for grand achievments. 

Practical holiness reaches political life. It causes 
the one possessing the experience to vote like a Chris- 
tian, lie does not cringe to public sentiment, curry 
public favor, nor sell himself for political preferment. 
It divorces him from all tricky schemes which char- 
acterize almost every phase of political life. Holiness 
carried into the political life of the nation would cure 
the evils which now render a large majority of our 
population miserable and degraded. But if its uni- 
versal manifestation were an event to be looked for 
only with the advent of the millennium, still the 
obligation of the individual Christian would remain 
to be holy in heart and to evince in his contact with 
the political world, in every case, that practical holi- 
ness which should be the concomitant of the inward 
experience. 

Practical holiness extends to every phase of business 
life. It has to do with men's dealings with others. 
It buys, sells and bargains by the (iolden Rule "AH 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you/' etc. The man who saw the fine points of two 
young animals which a poor man in close circum- 
stances solicited him to purchase, apprised their 



PBACTICAL HOLINESS. 125 

owner of their prospective value, advised him to keep 
them and loaned him money to carry him through his 
strait, instead of profiting by his neighbor's ignorance 
and necessity, gave a practical exhibition of holiness 
that carried out in every-day life would prevent the 
few from becoming vastly wealthy and put the many 
in circumstances of temporal comfort. 

Practical holiness in social life is the ultimate and 
radical cure for talebearing, slander, evil sneaking, 
etc. It will never take up a reproach against another. 
The late Eev. Joseph Travis once wrote: "It is bad 
enough if my neighbor has a reproach without my 
taking it up and carrying it to others." That a thing 
is true does not justify one in repeating it, if thereby 
another will be injured in his reputation; for reputa- 
tion is more valuable than gold. Treasure may be 
replaced, but a reputation once soiled is rarely bright- 
ened again. Practical holiness, then, is exhibited by 
a sanctified tongue. 

Holiness practically manifested controls every 
department of church life. It is felt in the official 
board, the quarterly conference, the annual confer- 
ence, the general conference; and one of the grandest 
manifestations of practical holiness may be made in 
the "church trial." The official boards whose mem- 
bers have holy hearts transact business to the glory of 
God. The conferences where holiness is the experi- 
ence of the members are free from all methods 
resorted to by unholy politicians. Holy men dp not 



120 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

trade their votes in conference for their own advance- 
ment or honor. They never bargain to give so many 
votes for a certain man for a desired position if that 
man will vote for another for some other coveted 
preferment. Holy men do not influence whole dele- 
gations to attain certain ends as do unprincipled men 
of the world. Holiness practiced makes the convo- 
cations of religious bodies holy convocations. 

In the church trial (for such things must occur 
sometimes while all men are human and some carnal) 
practical holiness insures the telling of the accused 
his fault first privately. If he does not hear the one, 
it takes two or three to endeavor if possible to "restore 
such an one in the spirit of meekness." It makes the 
final trial a last resort, and labors to ascertain the 
truth rather than to expel the accused as a result of 
unsanctiiied envy or prejudice. A practical mani- 
festation of holiness in dealing with accused per- 
sons might have saved many a church member to a 
life of usefulness and caused many a minister to con- 
tinue to make full proof of his ministry. Practical 
holiness restores and saves the offender, if possible, 
preferring such a result to sacrificing the accused. It 
loves souls as well as it regards the reputation of the 
church. 

It may be urged as an objection that many who 
profess, and doubtless many who possess the experi- 
ence of holiness do not, in all cases, measure up to 
the standard of practical holiness. This is no doubt 



PRACTICAL HOLINESS. 127 

true. Limited knowledge and the failure of the 
religious press and the pulpit to proclaim the truth 
will account for much of this failure in practice. It 
is our duty to declare the truth. Its declaration will 
cause men to think, to reflect, to examine the word, 
and to seek in prayer and by self-examination to 
"perfect holiness in the fear of God"; that finally a 
tidal wave of holiness, experienced and manifested, 
may "turn many to righteousness" and bring many 
sons to the glory world. 

Let us seek to be holy in heart and life. Let us 
enjoy and illustrate Bible holiness uniformly and con- 
stantly. MRS. MAR T C. BAKER, 

Office Editor of the Free Method id. 



SPURIOUS HOLINESS. 

The present is an age of shams, of superficiality, of 
counterfeits, of adulterations, of admixtures, in 
almost every department of life. Nor is the religious 
world free from them. Only that which is valuable 
is worth counterfeiting. In proportion to the value 
of an article is the effort made to produce its coun- 
terfeit. There are many phases of religious pro- 
fession that the devil does not care to imitate. They 
are so worthless he has no need to substitute any- 
thing in their place. It cannot be denied he accom- 
plishes much harm by the principle of substitution, 
by offering the sham for the real, the shoddy for the 
good. It is lamentable that he finds such a trade for 
his wares, that so many will accept his imitations 
and reject the genuine. 

The experience of true holiness is glorious. It 
ushers us into sacred nearness to God. It gives a 
gracious sense of purity to the soul. It destroys the 
carnality of our hearts. It lifts us far above the 
iniquities of the sinful world, the pleasures of sin, 
and the vain ambitions of this life. It gives strength 
in time of temptation, and consolation in time of 
grief. It alone can fit us to die and prepare us to 
enter the city of God. No wonder the devil would 
try to deceive us in reference to this experience. 

The Lord warns us against the false by exhorting 
us to obtain the real. ''That ye put on the new man, 

128 



SPUMOUS HOLINESS. 129 

which after God is created in righteousness and true 
holiness." In these days it has become popular to 
preach and to profess holiness. But we fear in many 
cases it is not the Bible kind. Pity is it that so much 
of the false, and so little of the true, should be taught 
and professed. 

Within the limits of this article we desire to call 
attention to some phases of spurious holiness. 

1. Spurious holiness is often founded upon wrong 
conceptions of the doctrine of justification. Our 
belief always affects our character and our life. 
There are holiness leaders who teach that holiness 
alone delivers from actual sin. Very many accept 
this erroneous doctrine and profess to be entirely 
sanctified when in reality they are only justified. 
Their teaching and example causes others to live in 
the commission of known sin and at the same time 
profess to be converted. A preacher once made the 
statement from the pulpit that Mr. Wesley had a 
sermon on "sinning Christians." He doubtless 
referred to the sermon entitled "Sin in Believers," 
but utterly failed to distinguish between the two 
statements. In harmony with such spurious teach- 
ing concerning holiness, we have often heard pro- 
fessors of religion, when reproved for dressing like 
the world, using tobacco, getting angry, attending 
balls and theatres, and such like things, reply, by 
way of self-justification, "We do not profess holi- 
ness." To make room for their theory of holiness, 



130 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

they minify conversion until it becomes too small to 
be seen and too powerless to be of any good. I 
believe that, as far as our outward deportment is 
concerned, we are required to live just as correctly, 
and walk as circumspectly, by the standard of justifi- 
cation as by that of entire sanctification. 

2. That holiness is spurious which is not deeply 
interested in the conversion of sinners. Much of the 
holiness of to-day consists in having a good time, in 
seeking "baptisms of power," in hiding in some 
corner away from contact with the world and "get- 
ting blest." It knows nothing about travail of soul 
for sinners, does not go into the highways and 
hedges seeking the lost, does not offer a helping hand 
to the needy and oppressed. It is the "goody-goody" 
kind, that agrees with everything and everybody and 
Offends none. It trims its sails to catch the favoring 
breezes. It has no opposition, no persecution, no 
trial, no conflict, and it begets no souls. 

3. It is a spurious holiness that lives in conformity 
to the world in dress, in business, or in politics. In 
these matters the plain word of Clod is disregarded. 
"Be not conformed to the world, but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind," "Love not 
the world, neither the things which are in the world," 
and other passages of similar import, are trampled 
upon or explained so as to mean but little. It is 
very common nowadays for persons to profess holi- 
ness while their attire plainly shows they have not 



SPUEIOUS HOLINESS. 131 

renounced worldly fashion. Men wearing costly and 
showy ornaments of gold, and women clad in the 
latest style of fashion, bear testimony, or pose as 
leaders of what they term the "higher life." The 
Scriptural injunction: "I will that men pray every- 
where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath or 
doubting. In like manner, also, that women adorn 
themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness 
and sobriety, not with broidered hair, or gold, or 
pearls, or costly array/' seems to be a dead letter. 

In business life they adhere to the worldly princi- 
ples, shave notes at heavy discount, charge exorbi- 
tant interest, drive sharp bargains, look out for what 
they call "number one," consider not the interests of 
their neighbors, and leave the impression upon the 
unsaved that they are seeking the almighty dollar 
rather than serving Almighty God. 

In politics allegiance to party seems dearer than 
allegiance to Jesus Christ and his principles. They 
give their influence to put men in office who are 
corrupt and to measures wilich are a disgrace to our 
civilization. They may sing temperance songs, offer 
temperance prayers, and preach temperance sermons, 
but they go to the ballot box and vote for the con- 
tinuation of the rum traffic. Surely the holiness that 
ignores Bible principles in dress, in business relations 
and in politics, is spurious. 

4. It is a spurious holiness that believes a person 
can be right with God while he ignores the just 



132 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

claims of his fellow-men. There are. those who pro- 
fess holiness and go into raptures over the prospects 
of getting to heaven, who do not render to their 
neighbors their due. Some of them give large sums 
to endow colleges, to build churches, to establish 
missions, to send the gospel to the heathen, to sup- 
port the preaching at home, to sustain benevolent 
enterprises. But this very money has been obtained 
by oppressing the poor, by robbing the widow, by 
grinding their workmen down to long hours and 
starvation wages. True holiness requires that men 
shall be just, as w T ell as generous. If the workmen 
got more, and the church less, of this money, evi- 
dently the Lord would be better pleased with the 
transaction. It is one of the most damnable delu- 
sions that men can deal unjustly with their fellow- 
men, and, because of their liberality to God's cause, 
can get a passport to glory. Giving to the Lord's 
work will never atone for the injustice and oppres- 
sion wrought upon poor humanity. Concerning this 
the Lord has spoken as follows: "I will come near to 
you to judgment, and 1 will be a swift witness 

against those that oppress the hireling in his 

wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn 
aside the stranger from his right" (Mai. 3:5). "He 

that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches 

shall surely come to want (Prov. 22:16). 

5. It is a spurious holiness that countenances and 
supports worldliness and worldly measures in the 



SPURIOUS HOLINESS. 133 

church. The majority of the churches make use of 
means to raise money which are plainly at variance 
with the principles of the Bible. The mere mention 
of some of these devices is enough to make a heathen 
turn away in disgust. Fairs, festivals, grab-bags, 
neck-tie parties, apron bazars, dog shows, donkey 
socials, shadow parties, masquerades, second-class the- 
atres, gymnastic performances, and many other kinds 
of nonsense — all in the name and for the benefit of the 
church,— must make the angels weep, and directly 
tend to delude and damn souls. Many of these are 
given by churches which declare they have been 
raised up "to spread scriptural holiness over these 
lands." Holiness professors either attend and take 
part in these schemes or support the churches that 
make use of them. It is very significant that Christ's 
first act in his public ministry, and also one of his 
very last public acts prior to his crucifixion, was to 
cleanse the temple of the unholy traffic in merchan- 
dise, and stamp his condemnation upon those who 
thus desecrated the sacred place. 

6. That holiness which will allow persons to 
adhere to secret societies is spurious. The Bible 
demands our separation from unbelievers. Secrecy 
unites the just and the unjust, believers and sinners, 
the preacher and the libertine, in one bond of fellow- 
ship; united by oaths forbidden by the word of 
God; united by principles of the most intense self- 
ishness the world ever saw. True holiness is open 



134 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

and free and benevolent. Secrecy works in the dark 
and is so clannish that it regards none but its own 
adherents in its ministrations of pretended charity. 
Christianity teaches that all men are brothers. 
Secrecy limits its obligations to those who have 
taken its blood-curdling oaths and sworn allegiance 
to its mandates. It robs the church of the proper 
service of her members and puts a spiritual blight 
upon those who associate in its councils. Some 
lodges deny the name of the Lord Jesus Christ a 
place in their ritual and in their prayers, and most 
of them deny the principles which he taught. At the 
threshold of every lodge in the land, in the promise 
of secrecy, persons are required to violate plain com- 
mandments of the Bible. It is written: "If a soul 
swear, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, or to do 
good, whatsoever a man shall pronounce with an 
oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, 
then he shall be guilty in one of these" (Lev. 5:4), 
Such a person was required to offer a sin ottering for 
his trespass that he might secure pardon. Vet pro- 
fessed Christian ministers and holiness teachers and 
professors are numbered among this selfish clan, and 
the holy cause of Jehovah is dishonored and robbed 
of its glory. 

7. That holiness which does not manifest the 
spirit of Jesus Christ before the world is spurious. 
Jesus was humble. He said, "Learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto 



SPUMOUS HOLINESS. 135 

your souls." Many of these professors are proud. 
Jesus was unworldly. He declared his followers 
were not of this world. Many of these are worldly in 
the extreme and are floating along with the terrible 
tide that is ruining the church. Jesus was unselfish. 
He lived for others. These live lives of selfishness 
and know but little of self-denial for Christ's sake. 
Jesus, when reviled, reviled not again. These get 
angry when opposed, resent injuries, are impatient 
under trial, fret under reverses, give way under 
temptation, and show but little of the kind, loving, 
tender, forgiving spirit of their Master. Genuine 
holiness enables us to be patient toward all men, 
kind and considerate, tender and forgiving. It keeps 
us unruffled when abused, helps us to render good for 
evil, and in all the relations of life enables us to 
manifest the divine, instead of the carnal, nature. It 
is our duty to have Christ for our example. The 
word is plain. "Let this mind be in you which was 
also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). "He that saith he 
abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as 
he walked" (1 John 2:6). "Christ also suffered for us, 
leaving us an example that ye should follow his 
steps" (1 Peter 2:21). The votaries of spurious 
holiness pattern after an ungodly world that crucified 
the Son of God. Such holiness is a sham, a delusion, 
and a snare. 

The day of reckoning draws nigh. That which is 
not founded upon the truth must go down. In the 



136 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

final determinations of the last day, all that is spuri- 
ous shall be consigned to the realm of perpetual 
night, while the true shall enter into the regions of 
Eternal Day. REV. J. T. LOG AN, 

New York Conference. 



Since writing the above, I have read some of 
Brother B. T. Roberts' articles, compiled under the 
title of "Holiness Teachings/' I beg leave to add 
the following notes from that most excellent book: 

1. "There is an aristocratic, self-indulgent holi- 
ness. It gives its influence to build up fine, costly 
houses of worship, with popular preachers, choir 
singing, select congregations, from which the poor 
are excluded as regular attendants, by selling or 
renting the seats. It puts on airs, dresses sufficiently 
in style to make the impression that it does not 
belong to the common people. It seeks the society of 
the upper classes, and endeavors to explain away the 
requirements of the gospel to suit their tastes. It 
goes as far in self-indulgence as public sentiment will 
permit. 

2. "There is a fanatical holiness. It lays the great- 
est stress upon that which has the least reason and 
scripture for its support. Its self-denial is great, and 
is only equalled by its self-will. It has in it an 
element of sincerity, but it is vitiated by being con- 
secrated to its own will rather than to the will of 
God. It lacks the great quality of submission. It 



SPURIOUS HOLINESS. 137 

does not know how to yield, even in matters the 
smallest and most indifferent. It must have its own 
way in everything. Everyone must submit to its 
dictation or receive its fiery denunciation. 

3. "There is a covetous holiness. It wears cheap 
clothing, but it is to avoid expense. It has a sharp 
criticism for every project that calls for an expendi- 
ture of money; but it is because it is unwilling to 
bear its part. It may have little, or it may have 
much, but what it has it holds onto with a miser's 
grasp. It is mighty in tearing down— it never tries 
its hand at building up. It may burn palaces— it 
cannot rear a hovel. 

4. "Much of the current holiness is wanting in 
spirituality. It has a worldly aspect. Generally it 
talks after a worldly manner. It keeps up a pro- 
fession of holiness where it is popular to profess 
holiness. But in general its conversation is of the 
earth, earthy. It lacks the odor of sanctity. It does 
not bear the solemn, heavenly aspect of one who 
holds communion with God. Notwithstanding its 
efforts to the contrary, it carries with it and diffuses 
wherever it goes a worldly spirit. 

5. "If selling or renting pews in houses of wor- 
ship is a plain violation of the prohibition to have 
respect of persons in seating congregations, and is 
contrary to the spirit and teaching of the gospel, then 
that holiness is defective which gives its sanction or 
support to this anti-Christian practice, 



138 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

6. "If the Bible requires plainness of dress and 
forbids Christians to adorn themselves with braided 
hair or gold or pearls or costly array, then is that 
holiness defective which pays no attention to these 
plain commands, but conforms to the fashions of the 
world in things plainly forbidden by the word of 
God." J. T. L. 



ADVICE TO THOSE PROFESSING HOLINESS. 

The life of perfect love is the ideal earthly life. 
Peaceful in all its relations, perfectly adjusted in all 
its operations, and lofty in all its aspirations, it is a 
life well calculated to win the admiration of the un- 
prejudiced unbeliever, and to delight the soul of him 
who realizes that in its possession he experiences 
daily within him the power of an endless life. 

To those who have entered into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus, the writer w T ould make the following 
suggestions: 

1. Cherish the thought of an indwelling Christ, 
Our divine Lord has said, "Lo! I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world." The burden of the 
testimony and of the prayer of God's people so often 
indicates that Christ is afar off, and that the heart is 
longing for his presence. This is not as Christ would 
have it. His conception of right spiritual relation is 
that of an indwelling Lord holding communion with 
the redeemed spirit. He is there to control every ap- 
petite, to keep every passion in willing subjection 
unto himself, to guide every volition into legitimate 
channels of action, and to regulate every power and 
function of the soul. Then give yourselves over to 
him to be "kept by the power of God, through faith, 
unto salvation." 

2. Let the Holy Ghost be your cherished teacher. 
When pride and arrogancy have been brought low 

X39 



140 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

and destroyed, when all self-sufficiency and vain-glo- 
rious boasting have ceased, there is sure to exist in 
the sanctified heart an insatiable longing to know the 
deep things of God. 

The Master knew that this would be so. He knew 
how paltry and trivial all life's lighter pleasures 
would appear, how shadowy and unreal all its entic- 
ing art, how empty its vain and subtle logic, how un- 
satisfactory its deepest research after truth. As he 
looked into the faces of his chosen twelve, and real- 
ized that he must soon leave them alone, with no 
sympathy from earthly sources, he spoke these words 
of deepest significance, "But the Comforter, which is 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things and bring all 
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said 
unto you." The Eternal Spirit, who came in accord- 
ance with that promise, filled all their lives with high- 
est thought, and thrilled their souls with revelations 
of an unseen world. AVell did the apostles realize 
what wonderful compensation the Holy Spirit had 
made for all they had lost, for all they had suffered. 

The apostle, in speaking of the things unseen by 
mortal eye and uncomprehended by the unregenerate 
mind, exclaimed, "But God hath revealed them unto 
us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, 
yea, the deep things of God." 

This Searcher of the deep things of God, who is 
able to comprehend the mysteries of the universe 



PROFESSING HOLINESS. 141 

about us, who understands perfectly all its laws and 
in just what relation each part should stand to the 
other; he, the Holy Ghost, has been designated as the 
Teacher of the saints. 

The Holy Spirit, perchance, may have led many of 
the saints who read these lines to give up the cher- 
ished ambitions of their lives. Some would have 
devoted themselves to art, some to music, others to 
sculpture or painting. But God needed their heroism, 
their energy, their love, in places where these cher- 
ished projects of life could not be carried out. And 
eo for love of Christ they have left chisel and brush 
and instrument and book, to serve in lowly places. 
Precious soul, if you have made such a sacrifice in 
love, the great teacher within you will surely give you 
glorious compensation. Does your nature long for 
harmony and song? What can excel the exquisite 
sweetness of that harmony which pervades the sancti- 
fied soul ? And when the Holy Spirit strikes with skil- 
ful touch the chords of our sanctified passions, the 
harmony swells, until the soul bursts into a song of 
lofty praise, a song that opera or drawing room never 
heard, that old, old song of Moses and the Lamb. 
Have you longed to trace the landscape or portray 
the human form ? The Holy Spirit is a subjective 
artist. He can make your soul all glorious within 
and hang all its walls with pictures and portraits of 
spiritual beauty. In hours of pious meditation retire 
within your own soul, and there behold the portrayals 



142 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

of the Holy Spirit. There is the figure of your dying 
Lord. Gaze upon him and think once more of his 
suffering, his self-denial, his tender love; think of 
what he has been to you and what his love has still in 
store, and as you meditate upon these things with 
moistened eye and subdued spirit, you will doubtless 
say that never form or figure moved you as do these 
revelations of your dying Lord. 

The heavenly mansions and houses made without 
hands are specimens of spiritual architecture. 
Thoughts that leap beyond the reach of telescopic 
vision are the sparks of spiritual inspiration. No 
shallow eloquence, no fallacies of thought, no tricks 
of logic in the great Teacher's language. 

He is the truth. Does your heart long for wisdom ? 
One moment of silent communion with him has often 
given to the soul of man revelations of truth that the 
investigations of years have not furnished. Let him 
guide you into all truth. 

3. Let divine love have full sway in your lives. 
Love is neither narrow, nor ascetic, nor inert. It is 
rather of such a nature that its very presence is recog- 
nized by the dynamic force it lends to action. That 
force is not directed into narrow channels, so that it 
is tumultuous, fitful, and destructive, but its might is 
exerted mildly, constantly, and beneficently. It gives 
warmth to the affections, stimulates the intellect, 
gives polish to thought, fires the imagination, quick- 
ens the memory, energizes the will, and kindles the 



PROFESSING HOLINESS. 143 

altar fires of worship. It looks forth from the eye, 
spiritualizes the contenance, dignifies the carriage, 
and frees the voice from "tones of earthly passion." 

This love our Lord has given to be the regulator of 
our earthly lives. If it be given full sway, it will ren- 
der any life free from "spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
thing." ALBERT H. STILWELL, A. M., 

Professor of Latin and Philosophy, Greenville 
College. 



HOLINESS AT DEATH. 

I was happily converted,— 

'Twas many years ago,— 
But soon after, I remember, 

I felt an inward foe. 
This to me was quite surprising — 

I wondered what it meant; 
To learn about the matter, to 

My minister I went. 

He told me that I must endure 

And fight these foes through life; 
And grim death at last would come 

And end the inward strife. 
That sometimes they would trip me op, 

And then I must repent; 
That I amid these ups and downs 

Must keep a good intent. 

This made me sad; and yet I thought 

A preacher ought to know, 
And fully there made up my mind 

To fight the life- time foe; 
My only hope of holilK 

Was on the boundary line — 
This side of vast eternity — 

Just at the close of time. 

Vet my heart had love for Jesus, 

Hated each foe within, 
And I often found it longing 

To be made free from sin. 
Oft 'twould rise above my theory; 

In spite of it would pray, 
"Messed Jesus! my Redeemer! 

Oh, take these stains away!" 

Would not the Lord be mocking me, 

Thus to beget a prayer, 
And yet make it impossible 

To get an answer here? 
No author of confusion, he 

Has ordered things aright; 
My heart and head did not agree — 

A most unpleasant plight. 
144 



HOLINESS AT DEATH. 145 

And then I found within myself 

A human love for life, 
By intuition God had taught 

With death to have a strife. 
And yet the Lord had caused my heart 

To long with every breath 
For what my theory always taught 

Was only found in death. 

My love for life and heart's desire 

At times would both be strong; 
A stubborn fact before me stood— 

God or my theory's wrong. 
Would he in nature raise a cry 

Against my heart's desire, 
And yet within my heart a prayer 

For holiness inspire? 

Then I read about old Enoch : 

Paul said, he pleased the Lord ; 
Three hundred years of victory, 

Then went to his reward. 
He did not die — God took him; 

But did he go unclean ? 
Of did the Lord for him renounce 

Part of redemption's scheme? 

And I read about Elijah, 

Who took a wondrous ride 
Straight to heaven in a chariot;— 

That pilgrim never died. 
He on earth was made white-hearted, 

And surely went up pure; 
Otherwise the holy angels 

Could not the sight endure. 

While looking up the promises, 

My doctrine to sustain, 
I found them in the present tense, — 

This made my theory lame; 
For not one word in them was found 

About a future time; 
In every one 'twas plainly seen 

The blessing now was mine. 



146 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

So then I turned to the commands, 

To see if they agreed ; 
And, lo, with promises they stood, 

To fill a present need; 
For, "Be ye perfect", clear as light 

Flamed from the sacred page : 
If God requires now, why should I 

Wait for a half an age? 

As thus I read the holy word, 

It filled me with alarm ; 
No death -redemption promised there — 

My theory lost its charm. 
I saw at once the fearful risk 

Of waiting until death; 
Vanished all hopes of holiness 

Obtained with my last breath. 

Thank God! at last my head was clear; 

This gave my heart a chance; 
No longer by a dogma held, 

It made a bold advance. 
Though some maintained it mattered not 

What anyone believed, 
I found that my wrong view withheld 

What I should have received. 

My heart broke out in strong desire 

To enter into rest; 
And soon I felt the holy fire 

Flaming within my bre:i.->t. 
It went down to the very depth* 

And purged out all my sin ; 
I found in life my Beulah land; 

By faith I entered in. 

REV. S. K. WHEATLAKE, 

Of the Ohio Conference. 



OUT AND INTO. 

** He brought us out that he might bring us in.' 

Out of the distance and darkness so deep, 
Out of the settled and perilous sleep, 
Out of the region and shadow of death, 
Out of its foul and pestilent breath, 
Out of the bondage and wearying chains, 
Out of companionship ever with stains; 
Into the light and glory of God, 
Into the holiest, made clean by the blood, 
Into his arms— the embrace and the kiss— 
Into the scene of ineffable bliss; 
Into the quiet, the infinite calm, 
Into the place of the song and the psalm. 
Wonderful love that has wrought all for me ! 
Wonderful work that has thus set me free! 
Wonderful ground upon which I have come! 
Wonderful tenderness welcoming home! 

Out of the horror at being alone, 
Out, and forever, of being my own; 
Out of the hardness of heart and of will, 
Out of the longings which nothing could fill ; 
Out of the bitterness, madness and strife, 
Out of myself and of all I called life; — 

Into communion with Father and Son, 

Into the sharing of all that Christ won ; 

Into the ecstasies, full to the brim ; 

Into the having of all things with him. 

Into Christ Jesus, there ever to dwell ; 

Into more blessings than words e'er can tell. 
Wonderful lowliness — draining my cup! 
Wonderful purpose that can ne'er give me up! 
Wonderful patience that waited so long: 
Wonderful glory to which I belong! 
147 



148 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

Out of my poverty, into his wealth, 

Out of my sickness, into pure health, 

Out of the false, into the true. 

Out of what measures the full depth of "Lost!" 

Out of it all— but at infinite cost ! 

Into what must with the cost correspond, 
Into that which there is nothing beyond. 
Into the union which nothing can part, 
Into what fills every want of my heart. 
Into the deepest of joys ever had — 
Into the gladness of making God glad. 

Wonderful Person, whose face I behold! 

Wonderful story, then all to be told! 

Wonderful all the dread way that he trod! 

Wonderful end— he has brought me to God ! 

— 1\n known. 



THE MASTER'S TOUCH. 

Matthew 8:15. 

"He touched her hand and the fever left her." 

He touched her hand as he only can, 
With the wondrous skill of the Great Physician, 

With the tender touch of the Son of man ; 
And the fever pain in the throbbing temples 

Died out with the flush on brow and cheek, 
And the lips that had been so parched and burning 

Trembled with thanks she could not speak. 
And the eyes where the fever light had faded, 

Looked up, by her grateful tears made dim, 
And she rose and ministered in her household,— 

She rose and ministered unto him. 

••He touched her hand and the fever left her." 

Oh, we need his touch on our fevered hands. ! 
The cool, still touch of the Man of sorrows, 

Who knows us, and loves us, and understands. 
So many a life is one long fever! 

A fever of anxious suspense and care, 
A fever of getting, a fever of fretting, 

A fever of hurrying here and there. 
Oh! what if in winning the praise of others 

We miss at last the King's "Well done?" 
If our self-taught tasks in the Master's vineyard 

Yield nothing but leaves at the set of sun ? 

"He touched her hand and the fever left her." 

Oh, blessed touch of the Man Divine! 
So beautiful then to arise and serve him, 

When the fever has gone from your life and mine. 
It may be the fever of restless serving, 

With the heart all thirsty for love and praise, 
And eyes all aching and strained with yearning 

Tow'rd self- set goals in the future days. 
Or it may be a fever of pain and anger, 

When the wounded spirit is hard to bear, 
And only the Lord can draw forth the arrows 

Left carelessly, cruelly rankling there. 
H9 



150 A SYMPOSIUM ON HOLINESS. 

Whatever the fever, his touch can heal it; 

Whatever the tempest, his voice can still; 
There is only joy as we seek his pleasure; 

There is only rest as we choose his will. 
And some day, after life's fitful fever, 

I think we shall say, in the home on high, 
'If the hands that he touched but did his bidding, 

How little it matters what else went by!' 
Ah, Lord ! thou knowest us altogether, 

Each heart's sore sickness, whatever it be; 
Touch thou our hands! let the fever leave us, 

And so shall we minister unto thee. 

—Selected by Ji lia F. Holmes. 



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